Gender inequality in top leadership positions persists across a range of fields. At a high level, research projects in economics, psychology, and management that have tried to explain persistent gender inequality have fallen into two buckets. The first emphasizes “demand-side factors,” such as how gender stereotypes about men and women comport or conflict with our perceptions of leaders. The second emphasizes “supply-side factors,” examining differences in men and women’s behavior when it comes to reaching high-power positions. According to this line of research, men may demonstrate more behaviors associated with professional advancement, including dominance, confidence, and competitiveness, than women. This week’s WAPPP seminar features Francesca Gino, Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor Gino and her colleagues study an additional strand of explanation closer to supply-side factors, namely gender differences in preferences. It may be that men and women have different preferences when it comes to achieving high-level positions.
The types of goals that we set out for ourselves have a big impact on our lives and our work. Professor Gino and her colleagues hypothesize that there may be a difference in the way men and women think about life goals more generally. While it’s very likely that our environment and sociocultural factors influence the types of goals that men and women have, these studies bracket those considerations and engage only with life goals as expressed by men and women. Professor Gino hypothesizes that women will have a larger number of life goals than men, likely across a wider range of roles in their lives. The second hypothesis is that in examining these goals, a smaller percentage of women’s goals will be associated with power as compared to men. These hypotheses are built on and consistent with literature that indicates that women are more motivated by relationships and men are more oriented toward achievement and power. Professor Gino noted at the outset that other audiences have responded angrily to portions of this talk, but urged us to look at the data and to remember that these findings are descriptive rather than normative.
If these hypotheses are correct, what are the implications for women and men’s desire to reach high-level positions? If women do have more life goals, and a smaller percentage are related to power, this may have implications for how women view professional advancement. Professor Gino and her colleagues expected that both men and women would be able to see the positive aspects associated with high-power positions, but that women would be more aware of and focused on the negative aspects associated with high-power positions than men. If women have more life goals that they care about, the logic goes, they will be more likely to see conflicts between their various goals and roles, and will likely see the need to make tradeoffs. Men and women, therefore, would see high-power positions as equally attainable, but women would see them as less desirable.
The first study of these hypotheses sampled 781 working adults and asked them to list their core life goals, up to 25 goals, within two minutes. Once each participant had listed their goals, they were asked to sort them into different categories based on existing research, such as power, affiliation, and personal growth. Research assistants looked over these categorizations to ensure that each goal was coded accurately. While the difference is not major, there is a gender difference in terms of listing goals, with men listing fewer compared to women. Similarly, this study produced the expected difference in terms of goals related to power, with a greater percentage of men’s goals related to power than women’s.
To control for concerns that women may have an advantage in thinking of and articulating their life goals under time pressure, the researchers conducted a second study that capped the number of life goals at 20 and asked participants to write down all of their favorite foods, up to 20, as a comparison task. The second study replicated the results of the first, with women listing a greater number of goals than men, but a smaller percentage of those goals were associated with power. These results obtain whether respondents list their own goals, pick their goals from a pre-written list, or are given a list and asked to reject goals that aren’t important to them. These findings therefore appear to be pretty robust.
Professor Gino then turned to the second question, whether men and women have different views of the positive and negative consequences of career advancement. In particular, this research asks whether women focus on conflict with other life goals in a way that makes them less interested in achieving high-level positions. Professor Gino and her colleagues sampled 635 Harvard Business School graduates and showed them a picture of a ladder representing professional advancement in their industry. Respondents were asked to indicate their current position on the ladder, what their ideal position would be, and their highest attainable position using the rungs on the ladder. The researchers found no difference in current position between men and women, but found the expected difference in ideal position. For men, their ideal position was higher on the ladder than women’s ideal position. However, when it comes to the highest attainable position, again there is no gender difference. Professor Gino describes this result as women saying “we can get there, it’s just not ideal for us.”
Why might we see this difference? Professor Gino and her colleagues anticipate that women see more negative aspects of professional advancement compared to men, despite seeing all the same positive aspects. In a companion study, respondents were asked to imagine that they had the opportunity for a promotion at work and to indicate on a scale from 1-7 their expectations of experiencing certain negative consequences, such as anxiety, stress, time pressure, and conflict, as well as certain positive consequences, such as happiness, job satisfaction, opportunity, money, and influence. The results tend in the expected direction – there is no statistically significant difference between men and women in terms of expected positive outcomes, but women report a greater likelihood of experiencing negative outcomes, especially conflict with other life goals. In this study, the researchers also asked whether respondents thought position was attainable and to what extent it was desirable. Again, women saw promotion to a higher-level position as attainable, but not necessarily desirable, and reported that they were less likely to accept the promotion.
These same results replicated across HBS alumni, executive education participants, undergraduate students, and working adults. While the data is descriptive and not prescriptive, there are all sorts of additional aspects to study. In terms of positive and negative expectations, women may be correct about the potential conflict and tradeoffs while men underestimate potential downsides of advancement. Alternatively, women may overestimate these costs. (It may also be that women accurately estimate the downsides of career advancement, knowing that they will have to shoulder much of the burden of conflict with other life goals!) Further, the study of undergraduate students implicates societal expectations in terms of life goals and institutional timelines for career advancement that may conflict with other roles and goals. One related study notes that there are significant gender differences in thinking about the future and that women have a much longer time horizon—whereas “long-term” is a period of years, for men “long-term” is measured in months. We look forward to more research to explore these complications further.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Monday, February 27, 2017
Friday, February 26, 2016
Two Decades of Gender Role Attitudes in Europe
Over the last two decades, we’ve seen a remarkable shift in attitudes towards women in the workforce—but when it comes to work and family, how much have our gender roles really changed?
This week’s WAPPP seminar featured an investigation of changing gender role attitudes in 17 European countries from 1990-2010. Professor Mary Brinton, Reischauer Institute Professor and Department Chair of Sociology at Harvard University, discussed her work with graduate student Carly Knight on the rise of gender egalitarian attitudes.
The inspiration for this project comes from the “stalled gender role revolution” beginning in the early 1990’s. The pace of change has stagnated in a number of areas, including closing the wage gap, decreasing occupational sex segregation, and changing household gender roles. Professor Brinton finds that beliefs about male superiority have decreased drastically over time, but may have been supplanted by gender essentialist notions of what is “normal” for men and women that have slowed changes in gender roles. Gender essentialism is not necessarily opposed to egalitarianism: it is possible to consider men and women equal but different in significant ways. Critically, Professor Brinton notes, gender role attitudes seem to be multidimensional: we should not expect a straight-line continuum from traditional to egalitarian attitudes. Instead, there may be many different “egalitarianisms” that have different levels of essentialism and respect for individual choices. This research project is intended to parse the different dimensions of gender role attitudes.
The key questions in this research are whether traditional (male breadwinner) gender role attitudes are declining everywhere in the postindustrial world, and if so, what is replacing them? To test these questions, Professor Brinton studied responses to the World Values Survey and European Values Survey from 17 European countries from 1990-2010. In particular, she focused on the items in the survey that had to do with men’s and women’s roles in the labor market and in the family. Specifically, she used data from respondents asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with the following seven statements:
Using latent class analysis, Professor Brinton grouped individuals into clusters based on their attitudes toward these seven statements. The results yielded four gender role attitude “classes.”
The first, traditionalism, is just what we would expect in terms of male and female roles in the labor market and family. Traditionalists comprise 23% of the overall sample.
The second, work egalitarian, is most closely associated with thinking that men and women should both work. Work egalitarians strongly disagree that men have more right to a job than a woman in tough times and agree that working mothers can establish just a strong a relationship with their children as stay-at-home mothers. Work egalitarians make up 29% of the total sample.
The third category, dual-responsibility egalitarian, comprises 30% of the total sample. Dual-responsibility egalitarians think that women should work, but also demonstrate a great deal of gender essentialism when it comes to women’s roles in the family. This group strongly agrees that women should work, but also feel that women need a family and children. Dual-responsibility egalitarians place significant emphasis on what women should do based on their identity as women.
By contrast, the fourth group, flexible egalitarian, believes that women have choices and that all choices are valid. Only 18% of the total sample falls into this group, which is characterized by the beliefs that working mothers can establish strong relationships with their children and that being a housewife can be just as fulfilling as paid labor.
Having identified these four categories, Professor Brinton set out to track the change in prevalence of each attitude class over time. The prevalence of traditional gender role attitudes has dropped precipitously: 40% of the 1990 sample espoused traditional views, down to 10% in 2010. Work egalitarian and dual-responsibility egalitarian attitudes have increased the most over this period: flexible egalitarian attitudes remain somewhat rare.
Professor Brinton compared a few individual countries’ paths of change within the sample. In Hungary and Poland, dual-responsibility egalitarianism has generally replaced traditionalism. By contrast, in Germany, Spain, and Denmark, work egalitarianism is most prominent. Other than the decrease in traditionalism, there hasn’t been a significant convergence toward any particular egalitarianism in the 17 countries in the sample.
This work opens up the opportunity for much more research: this analysis descriptively defines the types and changes in attitudes, but doesn’t tell us much about who holds these views. For example, flexible egalitarianism may be constrained by social class, as only certain women can afford to have choices. Further, the surveys have only just begun to add items about expectations for men’s roles. We look forward to more work on changing gender role attitudes in the future!
This week’s WAPPP seminar featured an investigation of changing gender role attitudes in 17 European countries from 1990-2010. Professor Mary Brinton, Reischauer Institute Professor and Department Chair of Sociology at Harvard University, discussed her work with graduate student Carly Knight on the rise of gender egalitarian attitudes.
The inspiration for this project comes from the “stalled gender role revolution” beginning in the early 1990’s. The pace of change has stagnated in a number of areas, including closing the wage gap, decreasing occupational sex segregation, and changing household gender roles. Professor Brinton finds that beliefs about male superiority have decreased drastically over time, but may have been supplanted by gender essentialist notions of what is “normal” for men and women that have slowed changes in gender roles. Gender essentialism is not necessarily opposed to egalitarianism: it is possible to consider men and women equal but different in significant ways. Critically, Professor Brinton notes, gender role attitudes seem to be multidimensional: we should not expect a straight-line continuum from traditional to egalitarian attitudes. Instead, there may be many different “egalitarianisms” that have different levels of essentialism and respect for individual choices. This research project is intended to parse the different dimensions of gender role attitudes.
The key questions in this research are whether traditional (male breadwinner) gender role attitudes are declining everywhere in the postindustrial world, and if so, what is replacing them? To test these questions, Professor Brinton studied responses to the World Values Survey and European Values Survey from 17 European countries from 1990-2010. In particular, she focused on the items in the survey that had to do with men’s and women’s roles in the labor market and in the family. Specifically, she used data from respondents asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with the following seven statements:
- A working woman needs to have children in order to be fulfilled
- A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who doesn’t work.
- Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay.
- Both husband and wife should contribute to household income.
- A job is all right, but what most women want is a home and children.
- Having a job is the best way for a woman to be an independent person.
- When jobs are scarce, a man should have more right to a job than a woman.
Using latent class analysis, Professor Brinton grouped individuals into clusters based on their attitudes toward these seven statements. The results yielded four gender role attitude “classes.”
The first, traditionalism, is just what we would expect in terms of male and female roles in the labor market and family. Traditionalists comprise 23% of the overall sample.
The second, work egalitarian, is most closely associated with thinking that men and women should both work. Work egalitarians strongly disagree that men have more right to a job than a woman in tough times and agree that working mothers can establish just a strong a relationship with their children as stay-at-home mothers. Work egalitarians make up 29% of the total sample.
The third category, dual-responsibility egalitarian, comprises 30% of the total sample. Dual-responsibility egalitarians think that women should work, but also demonstrate a great deal of gender essentialism when it comes to women’s roles in the family. This group strongly agrees that women should work, but also feel that women need a family and children. Dual-responsibility egalitarians place significant emphasis on what women should do based on their identity as women.
By contrast, the fourth group, flexible egalitarian, believes that women have choices and that all choices are valid. Only 18% of the total sample falls into this group, which is characterized by the beliefs that working mothers can establish strong relationships with their children and that being a housewife can be just as fulfilling as paid labor.
Having identified these four categories, Professor Brinton set out to track the change in prevalence of each attitude class over time. The prevalence of traditional gender role attitudes has dropped precipitously: 40% of the 1990 sample espoused traditional views, down to 10% in 2010. Work egalitarian and dual-responsibility egalitarian attitudes have increased the most over this period: flexible egalitarian attitudes remain somewhat rare.
Professor Brinton compared a few individual countries’ paths of change within the sample. In Hungary and Poland, dual-responsibility egalitarianism has generally replaced traditionalism. By contrast, in Germany, Spain, and Denmark, work egalitarianism is most prominent. Other than the decrease in traditionalism, there hasn’t been a significant convergence toward any particular egalitarianism in the 17 countries in the sample.
This work opens up the opportunity for much more research: this analysis descriptively defines the types and changes in attitudes, but doesn’t tell us much about who holds these views. For example, flexible egalitarianism may be constrained by social class, as only certain women can afford to have choices. Further, the surveys have only just begun to add items about expectations for men’s roles. We look forward to more work on changing gender role attitudes in the future!
Monday, February 24, 2014
Lean Back: How do we stop working too much?
“He’s a very good employee; he works late every day.”
How many times have you heard someone say something like this, implying that the amount of time someone works is indicative of the quality of their work?
In this week’s seminar on “Imposed vs. Desired Professional Identities: Embracing, Passing, Revealing and their Consequences,” Professor Erin Reid of Boston University looked at whether this idea is true, and how workers at a competitive management consulting firm feel about it.
Professor Reid starts with the idea that the most desirable worker, according to this organization, is one that is always available for and committed to their work---a profile that is assumed to describe men more than women, who supposedly prioritize home life more. And in fact, large firms often assess their personnel based not on the quality of their output, but on the time they put in and their attitude towards doing so; the idea of “billable hours” practically imposes this on an organization.
She finds, however, that even in this competitive, demanding organization, more than 57% of the workers feel a conflict with this norm: they don’t want the time commitment to harm their family lives, they don’t want their health to suffer, and fundamentally, they don’t think putting in more hours necessary means better work or a better life.
But the way they deal with this conflict differs. Those that openly reveal their preferences for normal working hours by asking for leave or telling colleagues about their non-office priorities, were often penalized by the firm: passed over for promotions or outright fired. But others simply passed off their preferences by making others think that they were working longer than they were, or that they were committed to office work mentally even while prioritizing non-office activities. These people were often rewarded by their colleagues and by management.
In the short term, this would indicate that to get the best of both worlds, employees should just pretend to be committed to 18-hour days while actually finding ways around it---ducking out early, making arrangements to work from home, being strategic about who in the office they tell and how.
But more consequentially, this conflict speaks to an American tendency to think that “more time at work” equals “better work,” which is not necessarily true---in fact it’s often the opposite. Not only do work-life balance and social relations suffer, but the quality of work itself suffers when people are overworked and exhausted. And contrary to common perceptions, women and men are realizing this at equal rates.
While the gender equality discourse has recently been dominated by Sheryl Sandberg’s exhortation to “Lean In”---i.e. to work as hard as you must to get a place at the table---Rosa Brooks writes that “We've managed to create a world in which ubiquity” in the office and the home “is valued above all.” This is an untenable recipe for disaster.
Instead, women “need to fight for our right to lean out...If we're going to fight the culture of workplace ubiquity, and the parallel and equally pernicious culture of intensive parenting, we need to do it together---and we need to bring [men] along, too. They need to lean out in solidarity, for their own sake as well as ours.”
Photo Source
How many times have you heard someone say something like this, implying that the amount of time someone works is indicative of the quality of their work?
In this week’s seminar on “Imposed vs. Desired Professional Identities: Embracing, Passing, Revealing and their Consequences,” Professor Erin Reid of Boston University looked at whether this idea is true, and how workers at a competitive management consulting firm feel about it.
Professor Reid starts with the idea that the most desirable worker, according to this organization, is one that is always available for and committed to their work---a profile that is assumed to describe men more than women, who supposedly prioritize home life more. And in fact, large firms often assess their personnel based not on the quality of their output, but on the time they put in and their attitude towards doing so; the idea of “billable hours” practically imposes this on an organization.
She finds, however, that even in this competitive, demanding organization, more than 57% of the workers feel a conflict with this norm: they don’t want the time commitment to harm their family lives, they don’t want their health to suffer, and fundamentally, they don’t think putting in more hours necessary means better work or a better life.
But the way they deal with this conflict differs. Those that openly reveal their preferences for normal working hours by asking for leave or telling colleagues about their non-office priorities, were often penalized by the firm: passed over for promotions or outright fired. But others simply passed off their preferences by making others think that they were working longer than they were, or that they were committed to office work mentally even while prioritizing non-office activities. These people were often rewarded by their colleagues and by management.
In the short term, this would indicate that to get the best of both worlds, employees should just pretend to be committed to 18-hour days while actually finding ways around it---ducking out early, making arrangements to work from home, being strategic about who in the office they tell and how.
But more consequentially, this conflict speaks to an American tendency to think that “more time at work” equals “better work,” which is not necessarily true---in fact it’s often the opposite. Not only do work-life balance and social relations suffer, but the quality of work itself suffers when people are overworked and exhausted. And contrary to common perceptions, women and men are realizing this at equal rates.
While the gender equality discourse has recently been dominated by Sheryl Sandberg’s exhortation to “Lean In”---i.e. to work as hard as you must to get a place at the table---Rosa Brooks writes that “We've managed to create a world in which ubiquity” in the office and the home “is valued above all.” This is an untenable recipe for disaster.
Instead, women “need to fight for our right to lean out...If we're going to fight the culture of workplace ubiquity, and the parallel and equally pernicious culture of intensive parenting, we need to do it together---and we need to bring [men] along, too. They need to lean out in solidarity, for their own sake as well as ours.”
Photo Source
Monday, November 25, 2013
How do we fix the work-life balance for everyone?
Over the last generation, we've seen a lot of changes. These days, more than two-thirds of children have two parents that are working full time. Meanwhile, those parents are simultaneously responsible for elderly, babyboomer dependents---which cuts into their financial responsibilities as well as their time. Add on other vital hobbies, leisure, a social life, and other priorities, and we see that balancing work and life is getting more and more difficult.
This was the challenge that Jane Waldfogel of Columbia University addressed in her recent seminar on “Work-Family Policy in the United States.”
This was the challenge that Jane Waldfogel of Columbia University addressed in her recent seminar on “Work-Family Policy in the United States.”
Some private companies have allowances for personal leave, but low-income workers, who wouldn’t be able to pay for supplementary help (like babysitters or nurses), don’t necessarily benefit from this. So there’s clearly a need for the public sector to get involved.
While the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, the United States does not have paid maternity leave. Some of the states that are considering laws of that nature---California, Washington, New Jersey, and Rhode Island among them---are the same ones that currently have Temporary Disability Insurance. TDI is a publicly funded pool of money (taken from a small amount of payroll tax) that provides about 55% of wages for employees that are temporarily unable to work for up to six weeks, and job protection upon their return. Of course, when the US Supreme Court mandated that TDI must cover maternity leave as well, no other states adopted it.
Some other options for assisting with work-life balance have been paid sick leave, flexible work hours (outside the 9-5 box), and assisted care. Currently, child and elderly care only exist in a very expensive private market, while middle income families are often eligible for tax credits. Lower income families receive some subsidies---and since the welfare reform of 1994, HeadStart programs have been expanded to care for younger children. But those programs still cover only 30% of eligible families due to a lack of funding.
So what’s the next step?
One big challenge is simply framing the issue. The feminist movement in the US has been reluctant to talk about family issues out of fear that doing so will hamper equality in the workplace.
Instead, Professor Waldfogel has proposed something different: speak more broadly of the importance of work-life balance for not just fathers and mothers---but for caregivers. And more broadly, for those who have responsibilities and personal priorities outside of work---a balance is important not just to one’s self, but to an employee’s health, sanity, and ensuing contributions to hir organization.
Frankly, the nature of work has changed in America, and not necessarily for the better. We value even the perception of quantity over quality; as Anne-Marie Slaughter rightly wrote, “more time in the office does not always mean more ‘value added’.”
While we rethink the work-life balance, we really ought to reconsider the work-work balance itself.
While the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, the United States does not have paid maternity leave. Some of the states that are considering laws of that nature---California, Washington, New Jersey, and Rhode Island among them---are the same ones that currently have Temporary Disability Insurance. TDI is a publicly funded pool of money (taken from a small amount of payroll tax) that provides about 55% of wages for employees that are temporarily unable to work for up to six weeks, and job protection upon their return. Of course, when the US Supreme Court mandated that TDI must cover maternity leave as well, no other states adopted it.
Some other options for assisting with work-life balance have been paid sick leave, flexible work hours (outside the 9-5 box), and assisted care. Currently, child and elderly care only exist in a very expensive private market, while middle income families are often eligible for tax credits. Lower income families receive some subsidies---and since the welfare reform of 1994, HeadStart programs have been expanded to care for younger children. But those programs still cover only 30% of eligible families due to a lack of funding.
So what’s the next step?
One big challenge is simply framing the issue. The feminist movement in the US has been reluctant to talk about family issues out of fear that doing so will hamper equality in the workplace.
Instead, Professor Waldfogel has proposed something different: speak more broadly of the importance of work-life balance for not just fathers and mothers---but for caregivers. And more broadly, for those who have responsibilities and personal priorities outside of work---a balance is important not just to one’s self, but to an employee’s health, sanity, and ensuing contributions to hir organization.
Frankly, the nature of work has changed in America, and not necessarily for the better. We value even the perception of quantity over quality; as Anne-Marie Slaughter rightly wrote, “more time in the office does not always mean more ‘value added’.”
While we rethink the work-life balance, we really ought to reconsider the work-work balance itself.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Is 'Opt'ing Out Even an Option?
Over the last year, Facebook Chief Operating Office Sheryl Sandberg, has made a splash with her “Lean In movement,” which seeks to elevate the role of women in the professional world. In her book and preceding TED talk, Sandberg---a former VP at Google, and former Chief of Staff at the US Department of Treasury---has been trying to “keep women in the workforce...because I really think that’s” why we have so few women leaders. “The problem…is that women are dropping out.”
At the New York Times, Lisa Belkin had written a piece called the “Opt-Out Generation, about educated mothers who have left a career to stay home, usually to take care of children. (Statistically, the revolution was limited to an economically fortunate few). More recently, follow-up articles have talked about how the promise of home life didn’t deliver: how “The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In,” but is having trouble reintegrating into the workforce.
In last week's WAPPP Seminar, Opting Out among Women with Elite Education: Evidence, Causes, and Societal Consequences, Professor Joni Hersch of Vanderbilt Law School looks at how valid these views really are. She looks at national averages across different types of college-educated women, and finds that most opting out is concentrated among married mothers who are graduates of elite institutions like Ivy League universities. To the extent possible, Professor Hersch even looked at how a woman’s parents’ educational background affects their current decisions; and indeed, the more educated her parents, the more likely she stayed in the workforce.
Women are more likely to stay in the workforce if they have science and engineering background; if they have graduate degrees; if they are employed in management, science, or health (rather than service or blue-collar industries); or if they are not married to very high-earning men.
Of course, as Anne-Marie Slaughter famously argued, the pressures on all women, in lower income and upper-echelon circles alike, to focus more attention on their own family remain strong---maybe even biological. The option to have a better work-life balance ought not be limited to those of elite educations, backgrounds, and industries, nor should this only pertain to women. Women that are not able to pay for nannies and other surrogate caregivers are particularly in need of “opting out” themselves.
Some steps toward that include lowering institutional barriers to that work-life flexibility: increasing public funding and other access to childcare and family leave, through legal protection.
That's definitely a vital start. But a sad paradox is that many industries that have welcomed women over the last decades---from increasing their numbers to improving work-life balance---have supposedly lost their economic and social “prestige” at the same time, making even that hard-won progress seem incomplete.
So, even as we start to change institutions and policies, we've got to influence how people think of their work and colleagues as well.
At the New York Times, Lisa Belkin had written a piece called the “Opt-Out Generation, about educated mothers who have left a career to stay home, usually to take care of children. (Statistically, the revolution was limited to an economically fortunate few). More recently, follow-up articles have talked about how the promise of home life didn’t deliver: how “The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In,” but is having trouble reintegrating into the workforce.
In last week's WAPPP Seminar, Opting Out among Women with Elite Education: Evidence, Causes, and Societal Consequences, Professor Joni Hersch of Vanderbilt Law School looks at how valid these views really are. She looks at national averages across different types of college-educated women, and finds that most opting out is concentrated among married mothers who are graduates of elite institutions like Ivy League universities. To the extent possible, Professor Hersch even looked at how a woman’s parents’ educational background affects their current decisions; and indeed, the more educated her parents, the more likely she stayed in the workforce.
Women are more likely to stay in the workforce if they have science and engineering background; if they have graduate degrees; if they are employed in management, science, or health (rather than service or blue-collar industries); or if they are not married to very high-earning men.
Of course, as Anne-Marie Slaughter famously argued, the pressures on all women, in lower income and upper-echelon circles alike, to focus more attention on their own family remain strong---maybe even biological. The option to have a better work-life balance ought not be limited to those of elite educations, backgrounds, and industries, nor should this only pertain to women. Women that are not able to pay for nannies and other surrogate caregivers are particularly in need of “opting out” themselves.
Some steps toward that include lowering institutional barriers to that work-life flexibility: increasing public funding and other access to childcare and family leave, through legal protection.
That's definitely a vital start. But a sad paradox is that many industries that have welcomed women over the last decades---from increasing their numbers to improving work-life balance---have supposedly lost their economic and social “prestige” at the same time, making even that hard-won progress seem incomplete.
So, even as we start to change institutions and policies, we've got to influence how people think of their work and colleagues as well.
Friday, March 29, 2013
The Politics of Work - Family Policies in France, Germany, and Japan
The issue of women, mothers, and work has received a lot of attention in recent headlines: which women have the choice to "lean in," try to "have it all," or find some balance that best fits their lives? Just how far can a mother (or father!) lean in when holding a small child without toppling over, and what kind of work policies permit more choice in these matters?
Patricia Boling, Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University, dove into these questions as she researched fertility rates, parental leave policies, and child-care options in three different countries. Fertility rates - more easily understood as the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime - are an important driver in adjustments to national work-family policies. France, Germany, and Japan have all faced low fertility rates. This is not necessarily a state concern about women choosing fewer children; rather, the concern here is usually about the economics of supporting an aging population with a decreasing working-age population.
France tackled the issue of declining fertility rates at the turn of the last century, and its pronatalist policies and outcomes may offer some guidance to nations looking to impact their declining populations. The long-standing French policies that support child rearing include a 3-year long gender neutral paid leave, free public school for toddlers, and tax incentives for additional children. Germany followed suit in 2007 by offering a year of paid leave and an increase in state child-care spaces for 1-year-olds. Japan has been adjusting family policies, known as "Angel Plans," since the 1990s, increasing dual-partner leave time, compensation, and supporting child-care programs.
These all sound great, but just how successful have they been? As Professor Boling points out, national work-family policies matter, but no country is a blank slate. Many factors influence a woman's choice to have children: their culture, the political economy of the labor force, gender wage gaps, and the practical impact parental leave has on career choices. The success of work-family policies is often constrained by these factors as well. Institutional capacities, the tradition of administrative political action, the relationship between national policies and local implementation, and the traditions of businesses as political actors and their relationship with training and expectations from employees also impact how these policies play out.
France has experienced some successes with its policies, though challenges remain with the gender balance of parental leave. The long parental leave offers low pay for the parent who chooses to take it, and there are only 11 days of specified paid paternity leave. As a result, women often take repeated leaves and stay in low-skilled jobs with little chance for advancement. While fathers could conceivably take the longer leave, the incentive structure and labor force economy are such that the "gender neutral" leave is in-name-only. Germany's adoption of child-care policies has a strong correlation with geography and history: the former East Germany has high rates of toddlers attending child-care, while the West and South have lower rates and a cultural aversion to mothers who do not stay home with their young children. Japan is more challenged by a number of institutional factors. It has the largest "mommy penalty" in the world: the gendered wage gap between women, men, and mothers. Businesses expect loyalty from employees and are hesitant to invest training in women of childbearing age. These same businesses play a major role in political processes, and may limit the success of attempts to adjust practices.
The lessons to be learned about work-family policies are still developing, as nations around the world continue to shape their responses to declining fertility rates. Professor Boling's discussion was a brief insight into a book currently underway. As our own national conversation continues about leaning in, stepping out, having what we can or want, it is worthwhile to keep our eyes open to other nations and their approaches to women, work, and family.
Valerie Kane is an MPP Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Patricia Boling, Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University, dove into these questions as she researched fertility rates, parental leave policies, and child-care options in three different countries. Fertility rates - more easily understood as the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime - are an important driver in adjustments to national work-family policies. France, Germany, and Japan have all faced low fertility rates. This is not necessarily a state concern about women choosing fewer children; rather, the concern here is usually about the economics of supporting an aging population with a decreasing working-age population.
France tackled the issue of declining fertility rates at the turn of the last century, and its pronatalist policies and outcomes may offer some guidance to nations looking to impact their declining populations. The long-standing French policies that support child rearing include a 3-year long gender neutral paid leave, free public school for toddlers, and tax incentives for additional children. Germany followed suit in 2007 by offering a year of paid leave and an increase in state child-care spaces for 1-year-olds. Japan has been adjusting family policies, known as "Angel Plans," since the 1990s, increasing dual-partner leave time, compensation, and supporting child-care programs.
These all sound great, but just how successful have they been? As Professor Boling points out, national work-family policies matter, but no country is a blank slate. Many factors influence a woman's choice to have children: their culture, the political economy of the labor force, gender wage gaps, and the practical impact parental leave has on career choices. The success of work-family policies is often constrained by these factors as well. Institutional capacities, the tradition of administrative political action, the relationship between national policies and local implementation, and the traditions of businesses as political actors and their relationship with training and expectations from employees also impact how these policies play out.
France has experienced some successes with its policies, though challenges remain with the gender balance of parental leave. The long parental leave offers low pay for the parent who chooses to take it, and there are only 11 days of specified paid paternity leave. As a result, women often take repeated leaves and stay in low-skilled jobs with little chance for advancement. While fathers could conceivably take the longer leave, the incentive structure and labor force economy are such that the "gender neutral" leave is in-name-only. Germany's adoption of child-care policies has a strong correlation with geography and history: the former East Germany has high rates of toddlers attending child-care, while the West and South have lower rates and a cultural aversion to mothers who do not stay home with their young children. Japan is more challenged by a number of institutional factors. It has the largest "mommy penalty" in the world: the gendered wage gap between women, men, and mothers. Businesses expect loyalty from employees and are hesitant to invest training in women of childbearing age. These same businesses play a major role in political processes, and may limit the success of attempts to adjust practices.
The lessons to be learned about work-family policies are still developing, as nations around the world continue to shape their responses to declining fertility rates. Professor Boling's discussion was a brief insight into a book currently underway. As our own national conversation continues about leaning in, stepping out, having what we can or want, it is worthwhile to keep our eyes open to other nations and their approaches to women, work, and family.
Valerie Kane is an MPP Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Monday, November 14, 2011
When Daddy is CEO - WAPPP Seminar Series
The Man: David Ross, Assistant Professor of Management, Columbia UniversityThe Talk: Like Daughter, Like Father: How Employees’ Wages Change When CEOs Have Daughters
The Question: Do people get paid more if their CEOs have daughters?
Daddy's little girl may be a boost to his workforce -- in Denmark, at least. Recent research by David Ross of Columbia University in the country suggests that when male CEOs have daughters, they tend to on average pay their employees more than if they have boys.
Why?
It's a thorny issue. Some people (including some who attended the seminar) may balk at the idea that men think more like women once they have daughters. But these are exactly the assumptions the study uses to conduct its research. Ross's intuition based on his own experience having daughters got him thinking that:
- When anybody has a child, they tend to start thinking about the well-being of others.
- This proximity matters when it comes to leading a group of employees
- When men in particular have girls, they may be more conscious of having to protect/care for someone's well-being -- a "nurture" effect that women tend to exhibit more often.
- This only happens when have their first daughter. It doesn't happen with subsequent children.
- People who are closer in proximity to the CEO - ie, higher rank in the company - also tend to get paid more than people who know the CEO less or are a lower rank.
- The age and education of the CEO don't really matter - the effect is the same across all groups.
At the very least, Ross's research backs up the idea that the wage gap persists, and that seemingly innocuous variables like the gender of a CEO's child can make a difference.
*Photo Courtesy Smithsonian Magazine
Effie-Michelle Metallidis is a guest student blogger for the Women and Public Policy Program and Master in Public Policy first-year student at Harvard Kennedy School.
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