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What Determines Women’s Careers: Norms, Organizational Culture, and Institutions

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (PDT)

Manchester Grand Hyatt, Harbor D
Hosted By: Association for Comparative Economic Studies
  • Chair: Guido Friebel, Goethe University Frankfurt

Corporate Gender Culture

Pauline Grosjean
,
University of New South Wales
Renee Adams
,
University of Oxford
Ali Akyol
,
University of Melbourne

Abstract

We apply computational linguistic models to reports from Australian publicly listed firms to a gender-equality statutory agency to construct the first systematic measure of ‘corporate gender culture’—practices pertaining to the treatment of women across a range of dimensions, from recruitment and promotion to maternity leave and sexual harassment. While different practices are associated with female representation at different levels of the hierarchy (employees, managers, executives, board), the practice most robustly associated with firm performance consists in human capital formation opportunities open to all. We use a unique historical experiment that durably shaped gender norms in Australia to establish that: (i) corporate gender culture is shaped by local societal gender norms; and (ii) the relationship between corporate gender culture and firm performance is likely causal. By examining effect of government-funded parental leave in 2011, we observe that culture evolves slowly, but policy can shape gender diversity and corporate gender culture.

The Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship

John S. Earle
,
George Mason University
J. David Brown
,
U.S. Census Bureau
Mee Jung Kim
,
George Mason University and U.S. Census Bureau
Kyung Min Lee
,
George Mason University

Abstract

Studying detailed microdata for the U.S., we document a pronounced gender gap in business ownership and performance. Women are much less likely than men to own businesses and to participate in non-family entrepreneurial teams. Firms owned by women and gender-diverse teams distinctly lag in measured employment, productivity, and innovation. Rich data allow controls for many other characteristics of entrepreneurs, including motivations for starting a business, and of firms, including the amount of start-up capital. We can thus disentangle some competing explanations for the gender gap, including occupational choice, entrepreneurial motivations, and financial constraints. Finally, we examine financial access in the form of a Small Business Administration Loan, and again find a gender gap, with a smaller impact on growth of female- compared with male-owned firms.

The Effects of Sexism on American Women: The Role of Norms Versus Discrimination

Jessica Pan
,
National University of Singapore
Kerwin Charles
,
University of Chicago
Jonathan Guryan
,
Northwestern University

Abstract

We examine the extent and channels through which cross-market differences in women's relative labor market outcomes and non-labor market outcomes (e.g. marriage and fertility) are determined by differences in sexism. Using data from the GSS to measure sexism, we document that the large and stable cross-state differences in women's outcomes are strongly related to overall sexism in the population. Next, we distinguish the role of norms vs. discrimination in determining this observed relationship. We find that conditional on state of residence fixed effects, women born in more sexist states have poorer relative labor market outcomes, are more likely to be married, and have children earlier. We also find that gender gaps in labor force participation and offer wages at the state-level are (a) more strongly related to male sexism than female sexism, and (b) are negatively related to the sexism of the median male but not to any other percentile of the distribution of male or female sexist beliefs in a state. By contrast, women's non-labor market outcomes are strongly associated with mean female sexism, and do not vary systematically with the median or any percentile of the female or male sexism distribution. These results suggest that while prejudice-based discrimination and norms appear to separately matter for cross-state gender gaps in labor market outcomes, women's non-labor market outcomes are influenced largely by norms.

Women in European Economics

Guido Friebel
,
Goethe University Frankfurt
Emmanuelle Auriol
,
Toulouse School of Economics
Sascha Wilhelm
,
Goethe University Frankfurt

Abstract

Women are underrepresented in top positions in many sectors of society. For the U.S., it has been documented that the situation in economic research is particularly difficult for women, and many explanations have been brought forward. We report the findings in the first web-scraped data set on research institutions in economics. Comparing Europe with the U.S. we find a similar under-representation of women, but large heterogeneity between countries, pointing to the importance of institutions in explaining gender differences. Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria score particularly low in terms of representation of women. In all countries, women are strongly underrepresented in Full Professorship positions, which cannot be explained by the gender proportion of PhD graduates. We find that higher ranked universities have a smaller proportion of women in Full Professor positions, in line with the "leaking pipeline" hypothesis. We also find that they hire less women on the entry level, which, to our knowledge, has not been documented before. This second and novel effect is driven by some regions in Europe, which indicates that hiring institutions may play an important role for gendered careers.
Discussant(s)
Mariassunta Giannetti
,
Stockholm School of Economics
Elizabeth Brainerd
,
Brandeis University
Devesh Rustagi
,
Goethe University Frankfurt
Ghazala Azmat
,
Sciences Po
JEL Classifications
  • L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
  • J7 - Labor Discrimination