Economics of Gender

Category: Fall 2022 (Page 2 of 3)

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.    

–

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

Women in Politics

December 8, 2022 /

By: Cole Berglund, Owen Mcdermott, Roshan Syed

Summary:

Gender equality causes difficulties for women in the political world. Not only are women vastly outnumbered in politics, but they receive harassment from voters as well as their peers.[1] Being a minority in politics, women are put under a microscope for their political actions. In some cases, women are extensively recognized for their success but also blamed severely for failures.[2] Men are more encouraged by the public to run for office than women. Women exemplify that they can succeed in political positions, as they are equally represented in positions such as city council and congress.[3] Despite frequent success in local political positions, women are rarely considered for state and federal roles[4]. The gender gap in political support is most notable for elected offices. Margaret Conway discusses the drawbacks women face in the political world, particularly entry into elected offices. Theories that suppress women from elected offices include the confining social norms of domestic life for women, the acquired skills gathered from non-political activities that are geared towards men, and gatekeeping who can acquire sufficient endorsements, finances, and staff to successfully run for office.[5]

Policy

While there are many challenges in specifically combating the generational discrimination against women in politics, implementing required courses that inform children at a young age about politics and the steps necessary to make a career in government could help level out the numbers. More importantly, societal acceptance of women in government is the most crucial point, after all, these are elected positions, and without change, the current discrimination trends will continue. To combat gatekeeping, a policy should be enacted that requires a political party to put forth a man and a woman during the selection phase. This will solve the internal issues of gender inequality and give women equal opportunity to be voted into federal positions.

How this impacts you

These issues impact us personally because men and women are different; half of society is female, so women should account for half of these positions. It does not make sense for leadership positions to be predominantly male if society is not predominantly male.  

What have you learned/Questions

Research has shown us that women are unfairly and unjustly treated in politics- female representation needs to increase if we want to strive for a more balanced and equal society.

  1. As women fight for equal representation, what can students like us do to help aid this process?
  2. What are the steps we can take to break down the negative stigma around women not just in politics but in all places of work?

Sources

[1] Mona Lisa Krook (2020). Violence Against Women in Politics (In: Sawer, M., Jenkins, F., Downing, K. (eds) How Gender Can Transform the Social Sciences. Palgrave Pivot) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43236-2_6

[2] Lovenduski, Joni. Feminizing Politics. Polity, 2005

[3] Conway, Margaret. Women and Political Participation. PSOnline, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1350210

[4] Mona Lisa Krook (2020). Violence Against Women in Politics

[5] Conway, Margaret. Women and Political Participation. PSOnline, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1350210

Women’s Participation In Politics

December 8, 2022 /

By Angela Clark & Alyssa Gazivoda

Throughout our nation’s political history, evidence of women’s political participation has increased and yielded striking results. Even with rising participation, women still remain far from equal and continue to struggle, which is why this needs to change. As of 2022, there were 148 women sworn in at the beginning of the 117th Congress, which surpassed the 130 women that were serving in the 116th Congress (Women in Congress: Statistics and Brief Overview, 2022). In 2021, a record-high for women serving in the U.S. Senate was 26 of 100 seats (Women in Elective Office 2022, 2022). In the same year, 30.6% of 310 seats of statewide elective executive officials were women (Women in Elective Office 2022, 2022). As illustrated in our infographic, the data has shown slight improvements over an astounding 200-year period (Women in Congress: Statistics and Brief Overview, 2022). Due to less female participation in politics, how can political institutions aid in promoting women’s voices being heard when they insert their concerns into political discussions? 

A policy intervention that would encourage more participation of female candidates would include creating public campaign funding and support programs that boost female candidates’ fundraising potential (Rothschild, 2020). Changing our electoral rules so that each voice has equal weight will bring us closer to a perfect union (Rothschild, 2020). It would be interesting to see more programs and organizations put in place to inspire political ambition in young women. This could include webinars for them to engage in and workshops about the political system. 

The lack of women in politics has troubling consequences and limits our country’s potential. This country is built on the foundation of democracy and everyone’s voices being heard. When women face significant barriers to becoming the face of their communities, the very basis of representative democracy is weakened (Rothschild, 2020). Despite gender-based obstacles, female politicians have been shown to govern in more democratic ways, to be more effective at improving the health of their constituents, and to be more successful and adaptive in pursuit of issue specialization and consensus building (Rothschild, 2020). 

On a personal level, this issue has impacted us significantly in regard to experiences from our adolescent years. In grade school, when we learned about politicians, there were only ever lectures or depictions of male representatives. We cannot remember a time when a discussion around a female politician was ever a focal point of the lecture, which served as a norm that we have been accustomed to since. 

Additionally, a factor that played a role in deterring us from a career in politics as women is due to the negative media portrayal of female politicians. We have seen women politicians be discriminated against and negatively valued under stereotypes in media coverage, even with less coverage of female politicians overall. After discussing our research and past experiences, we believe that exposing young women to female politicians and how they ended up pursuing a career in politics can bring about change and inspire adolescent females to want to consider pursuing a profession in politics. With that being said, how can institutions do their part to implement change into their curriculum or class structure in efforts to increase exposure to women in politics to help empower and improve confidence for their female students?

Throughout our research, we have learned that although there have been strides to improve female participation in politics, there is still a long way to go. Aside from what the data entails, even in sectors across all careers, women have key contributions to make to leadership and should have a seat at the table. Diverse leadership in politics benefits all, and an upward trajectory of women’s political participation can enhance this notion. Understanding this has shifted our worldview to having optimism in that policy intervention and sustainable implementation can aid in the continued efforts to close the gap. 

Sources:

Rothschild, L. E. (2020). “The Gender Gap in American Politics: How Money in Politics Affects Female Representation.” Inquiries Journal, 12(10).

(2022). Women in Congress: Statistics and Brief Overview. Congressional Research Service. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43244.pdf.

(2022). Women in Elective Office 2022. Center for American Women and Politics. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/current-numbers/women-elective-office-2022

Women in Professional Sports

December 8, 2022 /

By Johnny Cowdrick and Andrew Fearey

Summary of Issues:

The main issue that women face in sports is the significant gender differences in pay that male and female athletes receive. Information and data from Taylor Gerch’s article are depicted in our infographic below. These large differences are rooted in discrepancies within the media gap as women’s sports are often neglected on a national stage, as well as certain verbiage in the Equal Pay Act that prevent women in sports from receiving the benefits that they deserve. The disadvantages that women are at in sports is also related to the lack of opportunity women are given in respect to job opportunities and sponsorship deals.

Policy Recommendations:

In order to create equality, policy changes need to be made. As male professional sport leagues have much more funding they have the ability to help support female leagues as well. For example, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Women’s Association (WNBA) pay their players a considerable difference. The average salary from the NBA is more than one hundred times larger than the average of the WNBA. Policies such as salary restrictions and revenue sharing rules could be introduced to ensure a more equal distribution of funds among leagues. As Nicole Zerunyan presents in her research as well, changes to the Equal Pay Act such as eliminating the “same establishment” requirement and adding a sports specific clause could go a long way as well.

Consequences Without Intervention:

If we continue to neglect the issue of equal pay for female athletes, the pay disparities and overall respect for the athletes will continue to dwindle. It is very common for these female athletes to acquire a second job outside of their respective leagues as a way to pay their bills and support themselves. Without active change and salary reconsideration, women will begin to part ways with female professional leagues as the time commitment may not necessarily be worth it. If this pattern continues and women are not able to justify their involvement in sports, the gender differences will become even larger.

Research Questions:

  • How have women in professional sports created awareness regarding the attention to their ongoing injustice?
  • How can male professional leagues help support the funding and activate change for female athletes?

Personal Impact of These Issues:

These issues have impacted me on a personal level as I have been able to better understand my sister’s career as a collegiate athlete. The way both professional media and universities dedicate more time and attention to men’s sports makes it difficult for women to have opportunities in the sports world. I am also now more aware of the sports media I am consuming and how I can be a better fan by supporting women’s sports.

What We Learned:

We learned the true impacts of the gender inequalities that are present in our sports world. The sports world needs to develop a common middle ground for the benefits of both the leagues and the athletes. Players need to be represented correctly in comparison to those of the male counterparts while the leagues are also able to make a profit. This has opened my mind to a better understanding of how significantly businesses revolve around money, and how the problems women face in sports and other professional domains are institutionalized in all facets of business.

Infographic:

Sources:

Baker, E. (2020). A Comparison of NBA and WNBA Player Salaries. Kennesaw State University.

​​Gersch, Taylor (2021). The Gender Pay Gap: Seeking Fairness for Women in Professional Sports. Oregon Review of International Law, 22, 147-196.

Zerunyan, Nicole (2017). Time’s up: addressing gender-based wage discrimination in professional sports. Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, 38(3), 229-258.

Who Run the World? Not Girls…yet

December 8, 2022 / / 0 Comments

By Sarah Williamson & Tara Castelino

Women have historically been underrepresented in high-level positions as CEOs or owners of companies. While the increase in the percentage of women in these positions has increased greatly over the past couple of decades, men still dramatically outnumber women at this level of management. According to a 2022 study, there are still more than ten times as many companies with a male CEO or owner than a female CEO or owner (Catalyst, 2022). This suggests that while we’ve seen progress since the early 2000s when female CEOs made up less than 2% of Fortune 500 CEOs, there is still work to be done as women now make up only 15% of Fortune 500 CEOs (Buchholz, 2022). It should be noted that this number has doubled since it reached 7.4% in 2020, suggesting an increase in how quickly female representation in leadership is growing (Pew Research Center, 2018).

To continue seeing female representation in leadership roles grow, there may be a need for policy implementation. Some recommendations include mandatory training on how to eliminate bias in hiring processes and more family-friendly policies that cater to women (Sanchez & Frey, 2020). Several European countries have also implemented quotas for corporate boards, requiring that women make up a specified percentage of the board membership (Sanchez & Frey, 2020).

If women continue to be left out of high-level positions, firms will suffer as well as women. Studies have shown that when women are in leadership roles, firms are more productive, and women are paid better and have better working conditions (Sanchez & Frey, 2020).

These issues impacted us on a personal level as we are both women studying economics who want to enter the competitive finance realm and hope to be successful in our field. It was disheartening to learn about the reasoning behind why women don’t earn executive positions in businesses. With the leading reasons being women are held to higher standards and employers are just not ready to hire/elect women leaders it became clear that the lack of women in executive positions is mainly based on preconceptions. This proves that even if women were to be tougher, had ample connections and didn’t have family responsibilities, they still wouldn’t be elected to leadership positions. Overall, we’ve garnered from our research that women don’t lack sufficient skills to be in executive positions but rather face a lack of confidence in their abilities from employers and peers. Learning this has shifted our worldview to be a bit more pessimistic and hopeful that policies will be put in place to encourage women in executive positions. One research question of interest we wanted to ask based on the patterns we observed is what is the reasoning that women are given when not hired for executive board positions. Another research question based on the issues studied is what skills do men typically have that women don’t that would make them more successful in leadership roles. Finally, we hope this blogpost sheds light on the true reason women aren’t hired as CEOs and raises awareness that they are as capable as men to handle the job.

Buchholz, K. (2022, March 10). How has the number of female CEOs in Fortune 500 companies changed over the last 20 years? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/ceos-fortune-500-companies-female/#:~:text=2022%20is%20seeing%20a%20new,and%20only%207%20in%202002.  

Catalyst. (2022, March 1). Women in Management (Quick Take). https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-management/?utm_source=pocket_mylist 

Pew Research Center. (2018, September 13). The Data on Women Leaders. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/the-data-on-women-leaders/?utm_source=pocket_mylist  

Sanchez, D. V., & Frey, E. F. (2020). Where do females rise to leadership positions? A cross-sector analysis. Applied Economics Letters, 27(15), 1252-1255. 

United States Women’s National Soccer Team’s Fight for Equal Pay

December 8, 2022 /

By: Jake Leonard and Tyler Colditz

Summary with support 

Despite winning the 2019 World Cup, the US Women’s National Team had a more significant and strenuous challenge ahead. The team earned and fought to achieve equal pay to their male counterparts. Even though the WNT was much more successful than the men, they still earned a fraction of what the men did. When brought to court, it was ruled that under the Equal Pay Act, there was no proven wage discrimination. Under their current bargaining agreement, the women were paid based on salaries and received bonuses on game appearance and wins. Within this same agreement, the men were given more opportunities to receive money which is why they were paid more. Since the women signed this agreement, changes could not be made until the 4-year cycle is over and a new agreement is reached. The fight for equal pay continues. 

This chart displays how, under the current bargaining agreement, the men still earn substantially more over the span of 20 games whether the teams win or lose all of them. If the men lose all 20 games they still receive $100,000 while if the women win all 20 of their games they only earn $99,000. This clear pay disparity further shows the problem and large gap in equal pay. 

Policy Recommendations

A policy recommendation that could counter this would be to cap the total amount a player on the men’s team could make, and give the excess money that goes over the cap to the women’s team. Another recommendation is to create a policy that gives the men’s and women’s teams the same base salary per game and the same potential bonuses per game based on wins and losses.

Consequences

A consequence without intervention would be women continuing to make significantly less than their male counterparts, despite performing better, having more success than men, and having the same job as men. Another consequence that could come without intervention is that some women would be turned away from attempting to play professional soccer for the US national team, or professional women’s sports in general, knowing this inequality of pay between the two gendered teams. 

Research Questions

Research questions based on the patterns we saw: 

  1. Has the WNT’s fight for equality sparked a movement for all women sports/athletes? If so, has it been successful?
  2. Once a new collective bargaining agreement is reached, is it able to implement an opt-out option if the current situation shifts from equality?     

How issues impact us on a personal level

While neither of us plays soccer, we believe the women’s team should be paid equally to the men’s because of their continued success in their sport. We understand just how difficult it is not only for women in professional sports, but women all over the country. This unjust fight for equality has opened our eyes to the current situation and we will do whatever we can to achieve it. 

What we learned and how our view of the world has shifted

We learned that the US Women’s National Team is making significantly less than the men’s team, despite performing better. We learned about the women’s fight for equal pay, and the current bargaining agreement on which they are being paid. This has shifted our view of the world because the women’s team is being treated in such a negative manner regarding this situation. Even with the Equal Pay Act existing, there was no proven discrimination, but looking at the numbers it is clear there is.

Sources 

Adams, V. (2021). The End” Goal” to the US Women’s Soccer Team Equal Pay Lawsuit: Proposing a Resolution for Gender Equality by Examining the Equal Pay Laws for Male and Female Sports. U. Miami Bus. L. Rev., 29, 22. 

Campbell, H. (2017). Superior play, unequal pay: US women’s soccer and the pursuit for pay equity. USFL Rev., 51, 545.

Das, Andrew. (2016). Pay Disparity in U.S. Soccer? It’s Complicated. The New York Times.Kimbell, J., Macy, A., Hammer, E. E., & Philpot, D. (2018). Yellow card: US Women’s Soccer seeks pay equity. The CASE Journal.

Kimbell, J., Macy, A., Hammer, E. E., & Philpot, D. (2018). Yellow card: US Women’s Soccer seeks pay equity. The CASE Journal.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Economics of Gender

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑