Economics of Gender

Month: December 2022 (Page 1 of 2)

Gender Discrimination During COVID-19: Men are more Likely to get COVID-19, but Women Suffer the Most

December 10, 2022 /

Editor: HANG ZHANG

After the outbreak of COVID-19, we were forced to stay at home, some of us lost relatives, and others lost their jobs. However, life goes on. We all have to think about where life is going after the coronavirus. Amongst the many changes, the most obvious is that women’s situation may not be good.

A Summary of Gender Issues Identified in COVID-19

According to the article ‘the gender gap in COVID-19 mortality in the United Stated’, men accounted for eight percentage points more deaths than women across all age categories during the COVID-19. However, regarding social impact women are more adversely affected by COVID-19.

Both men and women work from home during the outbreak of Covid-19, but women are the one who mainly cares for the family. In addition, schools were closed, and all students stayed home during the pandemic, which meant mothers needed to do more household duties than before.

Based on the article: ‘Quantifying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality on health, social, and economic indicators, they found that between March 2020 and September 2021, women are more likely to report unemployment (26.0%) than men (20.4%). According to the American Community Survey, women are overrepresented in low-paying jobs in the US. All restaurants and stores were closed during the outbreak, laying off millions of female sales and hospitality workers. Staying at home may sound simple, but things are often much more complicated for women who live with violent partners. According to the domestic violence charity Shelter, calls for help have increased by 25 percent since Covid-19. The more frightening news is that there have been at least 16 domestic violence killings of women and children in the first three weeks of Covid-19.

Policy Recommendations

First, employment and social security should be fairer. The government should encourage female-dominated industries. They should encourage firms that are manage by women with a majority of female employees, involve them in government procurement, and provide preferential finance and credit to help women obtain employment and attain economic independence. Moreover, they can provide unemployed women with free job-transition training. Second, support should provide in the family to alleviate domestic work and stop the violence. Men and women should share family chores, including housework, child care, and elder care. Then, the government could design targeted programs for preventing and suppressing domestic violence, protecting and aiding victims and providing public resources and social assistance.

Consequences without Intervention

The epidemic exacerbates gender inequality and even stalls or reverses the steps we have taken over the last few decades. We need intervention to recover from the COVID-19 recession. If not? Tourism, production, and service industries will have a hard time returning to their pre-epidemic state, resulting in a continued global economic downturn with the potential for a severe financial crisis.

Research Questions

What is the current situation of Chinese female workforce under the circumstance of Chinese government still taking COVID-19 serious and still adhering to its zero-clearance policy? If China’s leader were a woman, would China still be using the same policies to deal with COVID-19? There is no absolute way to prevent the spread and infection of the coronavirus, so we have to live with COVID-19 and what should government and companies to do to make the economy recover under such conditions?

How the COVID-19 impact me

The year I got my acceptance letter from trinity college, the epidemic started. The result was that I took a year off from school, and now I’m 21 years old and only a sophomore in college. In addition, after coming to the U.S., because of China’s zero policy, international flights reduced dramatically in China, and airfares skyrocketed, with the average price reaching 50,000 RMB one-way and only in economy class. So I was faced with either not being able to go home for a long time or paying high fees and being in hotel quarantine for ten days after returning to China.

What do I learned from the research

Even before COVID-19, women were still on the wrong side of society. COVID-19 magnifies the unfair treatment of women in society. In the past, I would never look at problems from a female perspective. The concept of women’s rights is vague in China, and many Chinese women do not realize that they are mistreated compared to men because of Chinese educational background. However, there are more serious feminist issues in China than in the United States, with the self-evident “preference for men” at job fairs, the predominance of male leaders in politics and business, and the fact that women are expected to do more of the household work. Unfortunately, in my search for literature on the topic of gender differences of China in COVID-19, this field of research is empty.

Reference

  1. Bateman, Nicole, and Martha Ross. “Why has COVID-19 been especially harmful for working women.” Brookings [Journal] 14 (2020).
  2. Albanesi, Stefania, and Jiyeon Kim. “Effects of the COVID-19 recession on the US labor market: Occupation, family, and gender.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 35.3 (2021): 3-24.
  3. Flor, Luisa S., et al. “Quantifying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality on health, social, and economic indicators: a comprehensive review of data from March, 2020, to September, 2021.” The Lancet (2022).
  4. Hennekam, Sophie, and Yuliya Shymko. “Coping with the COVID‐19 crisis: Force majeure and gender performativity.” Gender, Work & Organization 27.5 (2020): 788-803.
  5. Sevilla, Almudena, and Sarah Smith. “Baby steps: The gender division of childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy36.Supplement_1 (2020): S169-S186.

Gender Discrimination During COVID-19: Men are more Likely to get COVID-19, but Women Suffer the Most

December 9, 2022 /
After the outbreak of COVID-19, we were forced to stay at home, some of us lost relatives, and others lost their jobs. However, life goes on. We all have to think about where life is going after the coronavirus. Amongst the many changes, the most obvious is that women’s situation may not be good.

A Summary of Gender Issues Identified in COVID-19

According to the article ‘the gender gap in COVID-19 mortality in the United Stated’, men accounted for eight percentage points more deaths than women across all age categories during the COVID-19. However, regarding social impact women are more adversely affected by COVID-19.
Both men and women work from home during the outbreak of Covid-19, but women are the one who mainly cares for the family. In addition, schools were closed, and all students stayed home during the pandemic, which meant mothers needed to do more household duties than before.
Based on the article: ‘Quantifying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality on health, social, and economic indicators, they found that between March 2020 and September 2021, women are more likely to report unemployment (26.0%) than men (20.4%). According to the American Community Survey, women are overrepresented in low-paying jobs in the US. All restaurants and stores were closed during the outbreak, laying off millions of female sales and hospitality workers. Staying at home may sound simple, but things are often much more complicated for women who live with violent partners. According to the domestic violence charity Shelter, calls for help have increased by 25 percent since Covid-19. The more frightening news is that there have been at least 16 domestic violence killings of women and children in the first three weeks of Covid-19.

Policy Recommendations

First, employment and social security should be fairer. The government should encourage female-dominated industries. They should encourage firms that are manage by women with a majority of female employees, involve them in government procurement, and provide preferential finance and credit to help women obtain employment and attain economic independence. Moreover, they can provide unemployed women with free job-transition training. Second, support should provide in the family to alleviate domestic work and stop the violence. Men and women should share family chores, including housework, child care, and elder care. Then, the government could design targeted programs for preventing and suppressing domestic violence, protecting and aiding victims and providing public resources and social assistance.

Consequences without Intervention

The epidemic exacerbates gender inequality and even stalls or reverses the steps we have taken over the last few decades. We need intervention to recover from the COVID-19 recession. If not? Tourism, production, and service industries will have a hard time returning to their pre-epidemic state, resulting in a continued global economic downturn with the potential for a severe financial crisis.

Research Questions

What is the current situation of Chinese female workforce under the circumstance of Chinese government still taking COVID-19 serious and still adhering to its zero-clearance policy? If China’s leader were a woman, would China still be using the same policies to deal with COVID-19? There is no absolute way to prevent the spread and infection of the coronavirus, so we have to live with COVID-19 and what should government and companies to do to make the economy recover under such conditions?

How the COVID-19 impact me

The year I got my acceptance letter from trinity college, the epidemic started. The result was that I took a year off from school, and now I’m 21 years old and only a sophomore in college. In addition, after coming to the U.S., because of China’s zero policy, international flights reduced dramatically in China, and airfares skyrocketed, with the average price reaching 50,000 RMB one-way and only in economy class. So I was faced with either not being able to go home for a long time or paying high fees and being in hotel quarantine for ten days after returning to China.

What do I learned from the research

Even before COVID-19, women were still on the wrong side of society. COVID-19 magnifies the unfair treatment of women in society. In the past, I would never look at problems from a female perspective. The concept of women’s rights is vague in China, and many Chinese women do not realize that they are mistreated compared to men because of Chinese educational background. However, there are more serious feminist issues in China than in the United States, with the self-evident “preference for men” at job fairs, the predominance of male leaders in politics and business, and the fact that women are expected to do more of the household work. Unfortunately, in my search for literature on the topic of gender differences of China in COVID-19, this field of research is empty.

Reference

  1. Bateman, Nicole, and Martha Ross. “Why has COVID-19 been especially harmful for working women.” Brookings [Journal] 14 (2020).
  2. Albanesi, Stefania, and Jiyeon Kim. “Effects of the COVID-19 recession on the US labor market: Occupation, family, and gender.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 35.3 (2021): 3-24.
  3. Flor, Luisa S., et al. “Quantifying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality on health, social, and economic indicators: a comprehensive review of data from March, 2020, to September, 2021.” The Lancet (2022).
  4. Hennekam, Sophie, and Yuliya Shymko. “Coping with the COVID‐19 crisis: Force majeure and gender performativity.” Gender, Work & Organization 27.5 (2020): 788-803.
  5. Sevilla, Almudena, and Sarah Smith. “Baby steps: The gender division of childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 36.Supplement_1 (2020): S169-S186.

A Seat at the Table

December 8, 2022 /

Although women are increasing their presence within the work force, they are still notoriously underrepresented within leadership positions. History is to blame for the late entry of females, however there are still numerous factors that explain the low numbers today. Theories such as the “glass ceiling”, the “glass-cliff” the “sticky floor”, and even the “maternal wall” come to mind as this constant battle that women have to face. Yet in the past few years, especially in light of the recent social activism, we start to see more women break these barriers and overcome these limitations. 

Sticky Floor and Glass Ceiling

Women already tend to have difficulties entering certain career fields, especially those that are already dominated by males. While they are likely to be accepted to entry-level jobs, advancing beyond that is improbable. This is a reflection of the “sticky floor” effect, where females have low mobility in within their career fields and are unlikely to be able to rise to management positions. 

If they are able to overcome this effect, women are then faced with the looming “glass ceiling”. This is another coined term to represent the barriers that females are faced with. In a way, this is a continuation of the “sticky floor”, but accounts for all the future steps beyond that initial leap. Women are able to see these open positions of higher status but are unable to truly achieve them.

Glass Cliff

In the cases that women do achieve these higher ranks, data shows that they are typically appointed to them in moments of crisis. This is often categorized as a downturn in company performance and finances. If the said company continues on track with that trend, the blame will fall on the female leader. This result is then used to justify why women are less likely to be appointed to higher rankings.

Maternal Wall 

The “maternal wall” refers to the more social aspects of gender bias. It is the idea that women are not able to handle to combination of work and family life. This is especially found for women who, for example, take maternity leave or have moments of putting their family first. They are often viewed as less competent, and therefore not as committed to their careers. This term is also used to refer to character assumptions, where mothers are not seen as not capable enough to complete high risk jobs, especially in leadership roles. The attributes that are typically associated with motherhood are seen as a less desirable trait in a firm. 

Policy Recommendations

Research has found that certain countries had begun implementing laws to enforce gender equality. The national government enforces these rulings, and companies face a penalty if the demand is not met in a timely manner. It would be ideal for the United States to adapt some of these methods, however due to the political climate there is sure to be backlash against it.

This is why it is now up to companies to execute these procedures within their own walls. Individual company policies could be set up to create a healthier environment not only for women, but their entire work force. They can take the steps to host diversity, equity, and inclusion seminars in order to address the biases on all levels. Another step would be to acknowledge the difficulties employees have when it comes to balancing work and life. An example of this would be offering a more flexible schedule for them to choose from. This can benefit the company as a whole as people are finally able to commit themselves to other realms, thus producing a happier work environment.

Most importantly, solving this problem starts from a young age. An example would be to encourage more girls to take the leap and start pursuing more male dominated fields. With more young ladies being introduced to subjects like STEM, their confidence to succeed in the work force will thrive. Promoting positive mindsets in both boys and girls alike is key to future equality.

Looking towards the future

As of 2020, only 2% of black women in undergrad earn a degree in economics. The double-glass ceiling is something unique that women of color have to face, dealing with the intersectionality of bias. Taking this class was still inspiring though, as through our research there is seems to be a shift in dynamics. Even through the set-up of the classroom, there are people willing to take the steps to educate themselves about these problems. For future research I would love to see how women CEOs, especially of Fortune 500 companies, have been addressing gender equality. If they are using their status to help continue to diversify their boardrooms. To take it a step further, it would also be interesting to see how these CEOs are able to manage their family dynamics. Seeing how these top leaders are apple to approach this “maternal wall” would be inspiring to lower rank females on how they are able to juggle it all. In all women continuously face barriers against them, especially in a corporate climate. But as more people become aware of these issues, more will take the steps to make it right.

Sources

panelChristyGlassa12EnvelopeAlisonCookb3Envelope, Author links open overlay, et al. “Leading at the Top: Understanding Women’s Challenges above the Glass Ceiling.” The Leadership Quarterly, JAI, 9 Oct. 2015, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984315001034. 

Bruckmüller S, Branscombe NR. The glass cliff: when and why women are selected as leaders in crisis contexts. Br J Soc Psychol. 2010 Sep;49(Pt 3):433-51. doi: 10.1348/014466609X466594. Epub 2009 Aug 18. PMID: 19691915.

“Modern Family Index Shows Motherhood Penalty in American Workplace.” Bright Horizons®, https://www.brighthorizons.com/newsroom/modern-family-index-2018. 

Ryan, Michelle K., and S. Alexander Haslam. “The Glass Cliff: Evidence That Women Are over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions.” British Journal of Management, vol. 16, no. 2, 2005, pp. 81–90., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2005.00433.x. 

Rahman, Shakil, et al. “African- American Women and Leadership Positions: An Analysis of Young Adults.” Quarterly Review of Business Disciplines, vol. 2, no. 4, Feb. 2016, pp. 313–324. 

Terjesen, Siri, and Val Singh. “Female Presence on Corporate Boards: A Multi-Country Study of Environmental Context – Journal of Business Ethics.” SpringerLink, Springer Netherlands, 16 Jan. 2008, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-007-9656-1. 

Balancing an Unbalanced Pandemic

December 8, 2022 /

By: Anthony Daher

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unbalanced impact on women in several ways. Not only did many women put themselves and their loved one’s home at risk due to working on the frontlines during the initial wave as essential workers, but many women also had to take on completely new duties in comparison to men during these times. The responsibilities involved homeschooling and caregiving obligations which only added more burdens which interrupted their work, in some cases resulting with women leaving the workforce entirely. Imbalances that were already prominent prior to the pandemic were only amplified where we saw a much larger share of women, specifically those of color and who are low-income, needing to quit their jobs, along with taking on additional caregiving responsibilities and household duties. A survey in the United States informed 54% of black women were either laid off, discharged from their work temporarily, or received pay cuts while only 27% of white men faced the same issues. As many schools and business were re-opening, burdens were still placed, as childcare was still required from parents, restricting the ability of many mothers to work the same amount as they were before the pandemic. For example, some women may have been dealing with a COVID-related illnesses for themselves or family members, some still may have had to manage additional childcare responsibilities, and some were dealing with a major toll on their mental health. In another sample, examining the responsibility of home-schooling and house-hold duties, we saw 10% of women leave their job, compared to 2% of men leave their job. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some jobs may not be no longer available for women, some lost income due to scaling back their workload, causing many women to miss out on potential career development opportunities. However not all hope was lost as policies such as the child tax credit and paid leave in the enacted federal stimulus bill supported women in taking care of their families, as they received much needed health care which helped balance the responsibilities of their family and their work during the peak of the pandemic. 

A possible policy implication, aimed to fix the gender inequality in the workspace would be to apply guidelines that regulate the percentage of people in each sex that can be laid off. For example, if there we 6 employees to be laid off, of those 6, must be 3 men and 3 must be women. However, if there was a case where 7 people were to be laid off, either 3 men and 4 women would be laid off, or 4 men and 3 women would be laid off, opposed to laying off 6 women and 1 man. This will help combat the disproportion of more women losing their jobs due to covid.

The most detrimental consequence women would face without intervention in my opinion would be the loss in their career advancement opportunities due to taking on the burdens that took place at home. In the study mentioned above, compared to the 2% of men who left their job to help at home, we saw a much greater 10% of women leave their job. If paid leave and child tax credit was not included in the federal stimulus bill, I believe the numbers shown in the statistic above would double. Since the goal is to terminate the gender imbalance which was heightened to new levels, women and men must be given equal opportunities to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

While many would say the pandemic highlighted the gender inequality comprised within the workforce and at home, I composed a couple of questions to help test this hypothesis. In my first question, when referring to the women who believe they are dealing with all the childcare and house-hold duties, do you think the husbands think they are helping or are even taking this into consideration? In my next question, I wondered what would happen if the roles comprised within the household duties switched? If more men than women lost their jobs and were required to play a much greater role in household duties and childcare, how would they react? I believe these are the types of questions men do not wish to answer and keep the gender imbalance consistent and under the covers.  

Since both of my parents are surgeons, due to my mother owning a private practice, only my father was considered a frontline worker. This meant my mother’s practice was temporarily closed while my father had gone to work every day. Because of the stimulus received, a lot of stress was taken off my mother’s shoulders as she thought she would endure a long period of time without making money. Since she owned her practice, there never was a fear of losing her job. Personally, I believe my family was very lucky during this time our case was extremely unlikely with other families.

Infographic

Sources

Power, K. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the care burden of women and families. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 16(1), 67-73.

O’Sullivan, K., Rock, N., Burke, L., Boyle, N., Joksimovic, N., Foley, H., & Clark, S. (2022). Gender differences in the psychosocial functioning of parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carlson, D. L., Petts, R., & Pepin, J. R. (2020, May 6). Changes in Parents’ Domestic Labor During the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

Gender Gap in STEM Education

December 8, 2022 / / 0 Comments

By: Drew Britt

In the United States and the rest of the world today, there continues to be a large gender gap in STEM education. Through my research, I found that women are significantly underrepresented in STEM courses, majors, and occupations, and in most cases, the gap continues to grow. While most of the statistics surrounding this gender disparity relate to higher education and STEM careers, the problems that cause this increasing gender gap begin as early as middle school. Beyond that, women also face many challenges in college and in their professional life which cause them to either pursue other college degrees or leave their STEM jobs. These factors include but are not limited to, gender bias, unequal opportunity, wage gap, stereotypes, and hiring malpractices.

Policies other than those that currently exist such as diversity training must be put in place in order to close the gender gap. A possible policy would be to set quotas on the number of women STEM businesses must employ in their company or in a given year. If there are not enough women to fulfill these quotas, it will encourage more women to pursue the STEM field knowing there are opportunities out there for them. Along with these quotas, a policy should be set in place for females to be paid equally to their male counterparts if they are performing the same role in the STEM field.

If we don’t act now, we will face several consequences for having such a large gender gap in STEM education. If we continue to have qualified women drop out of the STEM pipeline or choose other fields because they feel they don’t belong, technology and engineering companies will lack a female perspective on products and in turn, fail to meet the needs of female consumers. In addition, the United States in particular needs as many women in STEM as possible because we must increase the number of students graduating with a STEM degree by 33% to keep up with the demand for professionals in STEM fields (Master et al., 2020).

  1. What policies have been put in place so far that have helped close the gender gap in STEM education and careers?
  2. How can high schools, universities, and businesses be incentivized to promote and create a welcoming environment for female participation in STEM to expedite the closing of the gender gap?

The gender gap in STEM education is frustrating to me because I have two sisters who are pursuing STEM majors. It is unfair for them to have to face significantly more challenges in their education and career than their male counterparts solely because they are women. Although I am not going into the STEM field, my research has given me new perspectives which will hope me promote female inclusion in my own field of study as I continue through my career.

Throughout my research, I have learned that although there has been an increase in the gender gap in some instances, we as a country and world are still far from where we need to be. The perspectives of women in STEM are extremely important as diversity in the workplace leads to higher production. In addition, qualified and educated women in STEM deserve to be compensated equally to their male counterparts as their contributions also hold extreme value in the field. While it may be easy for those not involved in STEM to see the gender gap in the field, it exists and will only continue to have a negative impact on our daily lives if we do not work to close the gap.

Infographic

Sources

Master, Allison, and Andrew N. Meltzoff. (2020). “Cultural Stereotypes and Sense of Belonging Contribute to Gender Gaps in STEM”. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology 12 (1):152-98.

Moss-Racusin, Corinne A. (2018). “Gender Bias Produces Gender Gaps in STEM Engagement.” Sex Roles 79, no. 11–12 (December 2018): 651–70.

Friedmann, Enav, and Dorit Efrat-Treister. (2022). “Gender Bias in Stem Hiring: Implicit In-Group Gender Favoritism Among Men Managers.” Gender & Society,  089124322211379.

Nadeem, Reem. (2021). “STEM Jobs See Uneven Progress in Increasing Gender, Racial and Ethnic Diversity.” Pew Research Center Science & Society.

Sarah D. Herrmann, Robert Mark Adelman, Jessica E. Bodford, Oliver Graudejus, Morris A. Okun & Virginia S. Y. Kwan. (2016). “The Effects of a Female Role Model on Academic Performance and Persistence of Women in STEM Courses.”  Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 38:5, 258-268.

“83% of women leave their STEM careers: We’re changing that.” (2015).

“The stem gap: Women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.” (n.d.). AAUW : Empowering Women Since 1881.

Bureau, U. C. (n.d.). “Women are nearly half of u. S. Workforce but only 27% of stem workers.” Census.Gov. González-Pérez, S., Martínez-Martínez, M., Rey-Paredes, V., & Cifre, E. (2022). “I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors.” Frontiers in Psychology, 13.

Compensation of Professional Athletes: Women National Soccer Team

December 8, 2022 /

In the world of professional sports, the compensation of men and women sports has always been a hot topic of conversation. Male and females aren’t being paid the same wage to perform the same task. With this may seem like a simple concept to understand, it’s a lot deeper than you may expect. Women have been given the short end of the stick. They are often paid less, given worse facilities to use, hotels to stay in, and food to eat. These discrepancies can be shown by the United States Women’s National Soccer Team. They have consistently placed higher in World Cup matches than the men’s national team. For example in 2014, the men’s team placed 15th and received twelve million dollars. In 2014 the women’s national team Won the World Cup and was awarded nine million dollars. This is a very frustrating source to see, especially knowing that both the men’s and women’s teams are employed by the same employer: The United States Soccer foundation. This foundation controls how the winnings are divided and how much money goes to the players. One of the main reasons the women are paid less is due to their contract clauses. The men’s follow a pay to play model where they are awarded money for just playing and additional money for winning. Women are given a year long salary that allows them to miss games and still get paid, but the money is very modest (around $72000 a year, plus $1350 per win). Using this method men will make more even if they lose every game and the females one all theirs.  Men are paid more than the women despite playing less games, and the women’s team produces more revenue. One main argument to help encourage equal pay is to pay players based on revenue shares. In 2015 females produced twenty three million dollars in revenue and the men’s produced twenty one million dollars. The issue with this data is the women’s team won the world cup in 2015 and the men’s team placed 16th. This comes from men statistically watching sports more and having more television time and people in the stadiums. While this is an ongoing issue there are many things that can be changed. 

One issue that could be changed is to remove the U.S Soccer Federation and have separate employers for both the men’s and women’s national team. If having separate employers is not a feasible option that there needs to be contract negotiations. The women’s team should change their approach from fighting for an “equal pay” model to a “pay to play” model similar to the men’s. Also growing the game. FIFA has been notoriously bad at contributing to growing the game of women’s soccer. The women’s national team needs to have more televisions and social media attention, as well as more friendly and exhibitions to help attract people to the game. While reading about this issue I was shocked to see the inequalities still present in U.S soccer and sports around the world. Without intervention from players or outside help, many of these issues are often ignored and overlooked. That’s why it’s important for players to stand up and fight for what they believe is fair and equal. Having learned this information allows me to better see and understand data that doesn’t relate to me, and to better understand the daily struggles of women in their fights for equal pay and opportunity. Two questions I have from my research is how is the U.S soccer foundation allowed to employ both the men’s and the women’s National team, yet have different bargaining agreements? And do you believe paying based off of revenue shares would benefit or harm the women’s National team.?

Works Cited 

Garris, Morgan, and Bill Wilkes. “Soccer Nomics: Salaries for World Cup Soccer Athletes.” Jwpress.com, International Journal of the Academic Business World, https://jwpress.com/Journals/IJABW/BackIssues/IJABW-Fall-2017.pdf.

 Jordan, Samantha. “Captain, My Captain: A Look at Autonomous Ships and How They Should Operate under Admiralty Law.” Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, vol. 30, no. 2, 2020, p. 283-318. HeinOnline, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/iicl30&i=338.    

 Rowan, Jenna N. “Equal Protection for Equal Play: A Constitutional Solution to Gender Discrimination in International Sports.” Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law, vol. 20, no. 3, Spring 2018, pp. 919-946. HeinOnline, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/vanep20&i=981.    

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Where are the female CEOs?

December 8, 2022 /

While investigating the underlying reasons behind the lack of women that occupy C-suite positions in corporate America, there are a number of things that stand out as significant and noteworthy. To preface this, it’s important to highlight that the 2021 reports from Catalyst.org show women make up 57.7 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 52 percent of managerial positions in the workforce. Despite this superficial equity, there are only 44 female CEOs among the top 500 companies in terms of net worth, making up just 8.8 percent of the CEO landscape.

Through my research, two key factors into why there are fewer women CEOs are gender-based stereotypes about women’s roles and the lack of leadership opportunities women have as a result of these biases in childhood and through the early stages of their careers. In early life, women who are taught to conform to traditional gender norms are found to be less independent, and less likely to find themselves in situations that could develop their leadership abilities. Women leaders facing a double bind has also been found to hold women leaders back, as they often face criticism regardless of the leadership style they choose and its effectiveness.

Though some programs and policies have been put in place to help women move up the corporate ranks, there is definitely a lot more that work can be done. Some of this work I am referencing are the programs that many industries have adopted to ensure there are women in entry-level positions. For example, many banks on Wall Street have developed internship programs that are strictly for women and minority groups. Despite these small steps, there are policy changes that could be made to tighten the gap. One thing that comes to mind for me is mandated diversity among corporate boards. Given that these boards ultimately decide on which employees become executives, a policy change to enforce an equal number of men and women board members would mean equal representation for both genders on major decisions. Continued education is also extremely important in my opinion. It would be a great step forward if gender discrimination education was required for corporate employees and board members.

While doing this research, two questions continued to resurface for me. The first of which being; if we, as a society, were to not make any policy changes to help more women become executives, would we see the gap close marginally over time? I personally think we would see it close a little bit over time due to the way people my age are being educated and trained to identify their inherent biases and not act upon them, and also because more women my age are getting degrees and occupying leadership roles. Regardless, policy changes are necessary. The other idea for future research I would love to see explored is to study how impactful childhood leadership development is for women on their confidence and future leadership abilities, and also how the exposure to gender stereotypes on childhood impacts women’s confidence in their abilities.

This class and this project have well-educated me on some of the issues we have today in terms of gender inequality. I understand now how hard it has been for women with high career aspirations to achieve their goals and the barriers that women face in trying to break the “glass ceiling.” I believe the most important thing I took from this class is the ability to identify gender-based stereotyping and inequality, and hopefully be able to educate others on what I learned when I inevitably witness some sort of gender discrimination or bias.

Oakley, Judith, G. (2000). Gender-Based Barriers to Senior Management Positions: Understanding the Scarcity of Female CEO’s. Journal of Business Ethics, 27: 321-334.

Fitzsimmons, Terrence, W. Callan, Victor, J. Paulsen, Niel. (2013). Gender disparity in the C-suite: Do male and female CEOs differ in how they reached the top? University of Queensland Business School. The Leadership Quarterly.

Atwater, Leanne, E. Carey, James, A. Waldman, David, A. (2001). Gender and discipline in the workplace: Wait until your Father gets home. Journal of Management 27: 537-561.

Ladge, J. J., Humberd, B. K., & Eddleston, K. A. (2018). Retaining professionally employed new mothers: The importance of maternal confidence and workplace support to their intent to stay. Human Resource Management, 57(4), 883-900.

Coleman, M. (2020). Women leaders in the workplace: perceptions of career barriers, facilitators and change. Irish Educational Studies, 39(2), 233-253.

Gender Gap In Politics

December 8, 2022 /

By: Gerard Marretta & Ben Pirko

We have learned that gender is not a uniform lens that politics can be viewed through, and certain factors can impact each gender differently. After researching the history and causes of the gender gap in politics, we have found that there are disparities between men and women in many different areas related to politics. Areas of most interest are political action, political party identification, political representation in office, motivations for voting, and political knowledge. Relating to the gap in political action, since women engage in more private political activism than men, but politicians pay attention to the public actions, are policy decisions more reflective of male preferences? A future study should seek to find out how policy makers acquire their populations’ opinions and understand that political engagement is not about more or less when comparing between men and women but moreso, the difference in how men and women engage. In regards to political representation in office, self-perceived qualifications is the strongest predictor of women considering running for office so, future studies should examine if women perceive themselves to be more qualified as more women enter the field of politics. Similarly, are the current women in office now more qualified than their male counterparts since they perceive themselves to be more qualified when beginning the selection process? When analyzing the gap in political knowledge of men and women, we found that many surveys narrowly measure political knowledge and as a result, women are disadvantaged. Many U.S. surveys include a “don’t know” option which puts women at a disadvantage because women are more susceptible to choosing “don’t know” while men will simply guess. Additionally, women are at a disadvantage when having to identify (mostly male) elected officials on the surveys because women are significantly underrepresented in national politics. To make for a more accurate representation of political knowledge of men and women, we believe that a policy implication should be to remove the “don’t know” option from all political surveys. Without this policy implication, women will be perceived as less politically knowledgeable than men which is not accurate rather, a consequence of our system in place. We found that it is very interesting to see when the “don’t know” option is eliminated, women are equally knowledgeable on national-level electoral politics and rules of the game, as well as gender-relevant and state political information. Also that women are significantly more knowledgeable than men in terms of government programs and services, regardless of whether a “don’t know” option is available.

We have learned that women are underrepresented and misunderstood in American politics and this is largely due to the systematic structures and unconscious biases in our society.

Sources:

Coffé, H., & Bolzendahl, C. (2010). Same game, different rules? Gender differences in political participation. Sex roles, 62(5), 318-333.

Welch, S. (1985). Are women more liberal than men in the US Congress?. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 125-134.

Fox, R. L., & Lawless, J. L. (2004). Entering the arena? Gender and the decision to run for office. American Journal of Political Science, 48(2), 264-280.

Bennett, L. L., & Bennett, S. E. (1989). Enduring gender differences in political interest: The impact of socialization and political dispositions. American Politics Quarterly, 17(1), 105-122.


Miller, M. K. (2019). Who knows more about politics? A dual explanation for the gender gap. American Politics Research, 47(1), 174-188.

Single Sex vs. Co-Educational Education

December 8, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Blog Post 

by Caroline Post & Katie Soucy

Through our research, we have confirmed that a gender gap does exist in STEM education. Women make up about half of the labor force in the United States, however, they hold less than 25% of STEM jobs (Beede et al., 2011). As you may expect after hearing that statistic, women hold a disproportionately low share of undergraduate STEM degrees (Beede et al., 2011). Even women with an undergraduate STEM degree are less likely than their male counterparts to work in the STEM field (Beede et al., 2011). In recent years, women have surpassed men in the number of bachelor’s degrees earned, however, the number of women holding STEM degrees remains low. This suggests that part of the problem lies in the educational system. Through our research, we have learned that girls shy away from competitive environments (like STEM classes) much more than their male counterparts (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2011).

Based off of our research, we believe policies reducing competition and increasing single-sex classroom opportunities could improve the issues we have described. For example, college STEM courses could give tests with ID numbers instead of a name (to hide gender) on them so that students do not feel they are competing with the other gender when the professor is grading. Also, requiring science and math classes to offer single-sex classroom options at the secondary-level in school could help improve these issues based on some of our research findings.

Without intervention, gender differences in STEM education will continue to exist, causing women to be underrepresented in STEM classes and STEM occupations. As a consequence, inequality in these classes, majors, and fields will persist. Further, certain STEM occupations (doctors, engineers, etc.) are commonly high-paid in comparison to other fields. If women continue to be underrepresented in STEM education and occupations, the current gender wage gap may be perpetuated.

This issue impacts us on a personal level in many different ways. For example, one of us went to an all-girls school, which relates directly to our research. On the other hand, the other went to a private co-education school. Our high-school experiences have impacted both of us in many different ways. One of us did not face sexist challenges in our classes, for example, competing with other males, whereas the other was in a competitive environment with other men in high school.

Through our research, we learned about many factors that alter women in higher roles, more competitive firms, and getting higher pay. Learning about all these factors will help be aware of them in our future careers and within different companies. The research also suggests that we create more outlets for women pursuing STEM-related fields. Our research shows that people aren’t purposefully going out of their way to put women down in related fields; instead, firms need more policies and implications regarding gender differences.

Two research questions of interest based on the patterns/issues observed are:

Teachers and parents frequently undervalue girls’ math skills, resulting in low self-esteem and low personal aspirations. How do we train parents, educators, and society to stop underestimating women? 

If money is an issue, do parents prefer sending their sons to private all boys schools over their daughters because of getting their utility back? What child would they / do they prioritize?

Infographic

Sources

Beede, D. N., Julian, T. A., Langdon, D., McKittrick, G., Khan, B., & Doms, M. E. (2011). Women in STEM: A gender gap to innovation. Economics and Statistics Administration Issue Brief, (04-11).

Booth, A. L., Cardona-Sosa, L., & Nolen, P. (2018). Do single-sex classes affect academic achievement? An experiment in a coeducational university. Journal of Public Economics, 168, 109-126.

Koniewski, M., & Hawrot, A. (2021). Are single-sex schools more effective than the coed ones? The effect of single-sex schooling on achievement among female adolescents in Catholic schools. Research Papers in Education, 1-22.

Niederle, M., & Vesterlund, L. (2011). Gender and competition. Annual Review of Economics, 3(1), 601-630.

Park, H., Behrman, J. R., & Choi, J. (2018). Do single-sex schools enhance students’ STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outcomes?. Economics of Education Review, 62, 35-47.

The Gravitation of Women Towards STEM

December 8, 2022 / / 0 Comments

By Amna Zeb and Pedro Mateo

Women from low-income and marginalized groups are less likely to pursue STEM than their higher-income male and female counterparts (Mau, 2018, p. 247). The lack of STEM extracurriculars in high school causes a widespread disinterest in female pursuit of further education and careers in corresponding fields. On the other hand, male students were generally unaffected by the absence of STEM co-curriculars (Miller, 2018, p. 3). A noticed trend among several sources is the tendency of women to express an interest in STEM when they visually observe the presence of female mentors such as teachers and professors (Stearns, 2015, p. 18). This trend extends beyond an academic setting to the workforce, with women tending to choose career paths with higher concentrations of female peers and mentors over male-dominated ones (Perez-Felkner, 2014, p. 11). 

In order to minimize the gender gap, increasing the visibility of female mentors such as professors and creating women-centered college support groups is essential to facilitating higher levels of self-confidence among STEM students. As a result of providing a variety of academic and social support systems, the STEM gender gap would decrease as women would be more empowered to enter male-dominated fields (Stearns, 2015, p. 18). Additionally, increasing the availability of STEM extracurriculars at academic institutions would further reduce the gender gap. Since participation in STEM competitions and a female student’s pursuit of a complementary field are positively correlated, encouraging engagement in such co-curriculars would provide students with substantial opportunities of resonating with STEM outside of the classroom (Miller, 2018, p.1). 

Since student interest in STEM is heavily influenced by academic opportunities, having an appropriate range of available courses in high school and college would facilitate a greater output of STEM majors into the job market. Additionally, the continued lack of mentorship resources within academic institutions would cause the current gender gap in STEM to increase. Since men alone cannot fulfill the demand for STEM professionals, without policy intervention, the STEM gender gap will continue to widen and eventually lead to the U.S. comparatively falling behind in producing innovations on a global scale. 

While the majority of the available research is centered around co-ed schools, it would be interesting to see if women attending all-girls institutions gravitate towards STEM fields at higher rates. Additionally, the correlation between the retention rate of a student’s STEM interest and the impact of support groups such as parents, teachers, or mentors is an important factor that needs to be researched further. 

In our college STEM courses, we noticed a gender disparity between the number of female and male peers and therefore had very different experiences. As a male student, I (Pedro) felt more comfortable in my Economics courses and more connected to the composition of more males in my class. Alternatively, as a woman in STEM, I (Amna) have often felt alienated by the lack of female peers and professors. 

From this research, we gained insights into some of the determining factors behind the persistence of the gender gap in STEM fields. One of the most important trends we learned about was the impact mentors and parents have on a woman’s gravitation toward a potential career in STEM (Hall, 2011, p. 9). After this project, our worldview shifted because we realized how lasting the consequences of the gender gap can be and how deep-rooted these issues are in society.

Works Cited

Hall, C., Dickerson, J., Batts, D., Kauffmann, P., & Bosse, M. (2011). Are We Missing Opportunities to Encourage Interest in STEM Fields?. Journal of Technology Education, 23(1), 32-46.

Mau, W.-C. J., & Li, J. (2018). Factors influencing stem career aspirations of underrepresented high school students. The Career Development Quarterly, 66(3), 246–258. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12146

Miller, K., Sonnert, G., & Sadler, P. (2018). The influence of students’ participation in STEM competitions on their interest in STEM careers. International Journal of Science Education, Part B, 8(2), 95-114.

Perez-Felkner, L., McDonald, S.-K., & Schneider, B. L. (2014). What happens to high-achieving females after high school? Gender and persistence on the postsecondary STEM pipeline. Academia, 1(1), 1-49. https://www.academia.edu/568702/What_Happens_to_High_Achieving_Females_after_High_School_Gender_and_Persistence_on_the_Postsecondary_STEM_Pipeline?auto=citations&from=cover_page

Robinson, M. (2003). Student enrollment in High School ap Sciences and Calculus: How does it correlate with stem careers? Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 23(4), 265–273. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467603256090

Stearns, E., & Bottia, M.C., & Mickelson R.A., & Moller, S., & Valentino, L. (2015). Growing the roots of STEM majors: Female math and science high school faculty and the participation of students in STEM. Economics of Education Review, 45(1), 14-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2015.01.002

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