Academia is hard and competitive —
And women just don't have the stamina
It is rather difficult to test if women are treated harsher in academia than men, or whether it just feels like this for women (because they do not have enough stamina?!?). Two papers by Alice Wu exploit a rather unique dataset on anonymous discussions on the academic economic job market in the U.S.. Analyzing words and topics discussing female economists show that women seem to be treated very differently and rather more unprofessional and harsher than men.
A paper by Jenner et al based on a survey focuses on harassment in academic medicine and find that most common form self-reported as harassment was verbal harassment (including degrading speech [62%] and sexualized speech [25%]), physical misconduct was reported less often. Colleagues were reported as the main perpetrators at similar rates by men and women, while women reported superiors to be the perpetrators more frequently. Strong departmental or divisional hierarchy appeared as a structural factor significantly associated with harassment in both male and female victims. In a similar survey study Pololi et al find that women faculty a medical school felt much less accepted and supported to succeed.
Even if it not a form of harassment, but for sure a type of disrespect, Files et al give evidence that women are less often addressed with their academic title in academic medicine -- Another rather objective measure that they are treated differently.
Furthermore a paper from Glover et al. uses data on cashier performance in France. Although it is outside of academia, it shows how the job performance of minorities is driven by biases of their managers. Working for a biased manager (or in a more unwelcoming environment) leads to weaker job performance compared to a non-biased work environment.
Also outside of academia Chakraborty and Serra conduct a lab erxperiment in which they show that if employees may react badly this has a differential impact on men's and women's self-selection into leadership roles and their performance if they become leaders. Especially low-rank employees were more likely to send more angry messages to female managers, and are more likely to question their decisions.
Wu, A. H. (2018). Gendered Language on the Economics Job Market Rumors Forum. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 108, 175-79.
This study focuses on data from anonymous discussions in an (mainly U.S.) academic online forum, the Economics Job Market Rumors forum. As its name suggests, the forum was established to share information about job interviews and outcomes anonymously in each year’s hiring cycle, though it is active year-round. Analysis of the data from this forum shows the existence of an unwelcoming or stereotypical culture using evidence on how women and men are portrayed in anonymous discussions. The author uses a Lasso-Logistic model to measure gendered language in postings, identifying the words that are most strongly associated with discussions about one gender or the other. Words most predictive of a post about a woman are typically about physical appearance or personal information, whereas those most predictive of a post about a man tend to focus on academic or professional characteristics. List on the words most predictive on the gender is freely available in the annex of the paper here.
Wu, A. H. (2020). Gender Bias among Professionals: An Identity-Based Interpretation. Review of Economics and Statistics, 102(5), 867-880.
Based on the same dataset as Wu (2018) the author makes use about 1.5 million posts using a discrete choice model to estimate the effects of gender on the transition probabilities between topics focusing on personal characteristics or professional achievements: Discussions about women tend to highlight their personal characteristics (such as physical appearance or family circumstances) rather than their professional accomplishments. Posts about women are also more likely to lead to deviations from professional topics than posts about men. The author interprets these findings through a model that highlights posters’ incentives to boost their own identities relative to the underrepresented out-group in a profession.
US study on seminar culture at US universities (n=463 economics talks). The paper reports the results of the first systematic attempt at quantitatively measuring the seminar culture within economics and testing whether it is gender neutral. The authors collected data on every interaction between presenters and their audience in hundreds of research seminars and job market talks across most leading economics departments, as well as during summer conferences. They find that women presenters are treated differently than their male counterparts. Women are asked more questions during a seminar and the questions asked of women presenters are more likely to be patronizing or hostile. These effects are not due to women presenting in different fields, different seminar series, or different topics, as the analysis controls for the institution, seminar series, and JEL codes associated with each presentation. Moreover, it appears that there are important differences by field and that these differences are not uniformly mitigated by more rigid seminar formats. Their findings add to an emerging literature documenting ways in which women economists are treated differently than men, and suggest yet another potential explanation for their under-representation at senior levels within the economics profession.
All physicians working at a tertiary referral center in Berlin, Germany (n = 737) were invited to participate in the survey on harassment in academic medicine between May 2015 and July 2015. The survey instrument consisted of 36 items: (1) forms of misconduct experienced and whether these were considered harassing or threatening, (2) consequences experienced, (3) perpetrator profiles, (4) structural and organizational information, and (5) training and knowledge about sexual harassment, and (6) assumptions about its causes. Of the 737 participants included in the full analysis, 60% were women (n = 448), and 39% were men (n = 289). Among all male and female participants, 70% reported some form of misconduct while performing their work. The most common form self-reported as harassment was verbal harassment (including degrading speech [62%] and sexualized speech [25%]). Nonphysical misconduct was perceived as harassing by 76% of the individuals, more frequently by women than by men (83% vs 61%; P < .001). Physical misconduct was perceived as harassing by 89% of those reporting such misconduct and as threatening by 28%, with no significant sex differences. Women reported the perpetrators of harassment to be almost exclusively male, both for nonphysical harassment (85% of perpetrators against women compared with 38% of perpetrators against men; P < .001) and for physical harassment (95% of perpetrators against women compared with 13% of those against men; P < .001) . Colleagues were reported as the main perpetrators at similar rates by men and women, while women reported superiors to be the perpetrators more frequently (37% vs 18%; P < .001). Strong departmental or divisional hierarchy appeared as the only structural factor significantly associated with harassment in both male and female victims. According to the authors, these results support the need for cultural change in the form of structural and widespread action to truly reduce the high incidence of sexual harassment in academic medicine.
A survey was used to collect data (a stratified random sample of 4,578 full-time faculty at 26 nationally representative US medical colleges. 1,271 (53 %) of respondents were female) on perceptions of organizational culture. The authors used factor analysis in the creation of scales assessing dimensions of the culture and regression analysis to identify gender differences while controlling for other demographic characteristics. Compared with men, female faculty reported a lower sense of belonging and relationships within the workplace (T = −3.30, p < 0.01). Self-efficacy for career advancement was lower in women (T = −4.73, p < 0.001). Women perceived lower gender equity (T = −19.82, p < 0.001), and were less likely to believe their institutions were making changes to address diversity goals (T = −9.70, p < 0.001). Women were less likely than men to perceive their institution as family-friendly (T = −4.06, p < 0.001), and women reported less congruence between their own values and those of their institutions (T = −2.06, p < 0.05). Women and men did not differ significantly on levels of engagement, leadership aspirations, feelings of ethical/moral distress, perception of institutional commitment to faculty advancement, or perception of institutional change efforts to improve support for faculty. The authors therefore conclude that faculty men and women are equally engaged in their work and share similar leadership aspirations. However, medical schools have failed to create and sustain an environment where women feel fully accepted and supported to succeed.
Files, J.A., Mayer, A.P., Ko, M.G., Friedrich, P., Jenkins, M., Bryan, M.J., Vegunta, S., Wittich, C.M., Lyle, M.A., Melikian, R. & Duston, T. (2017). Speaker introductions at internal medicine grand rounds: forms of address reveal gender bias. Journal of women's health, 26(5), 413-419.
The US retrospective observational study examines how professional titles were used in the same and mixed-gender speaker introductions (n=321) at Internal Medicine Grand Rounds. It made use of video-archived speaker introductions. Introducers and speakers were physician and scientist peers holding MD, PhD, or MD/PhD degrees. The primary outcome was whether or not a speaker’s professional title was used during the first form of address during speaker introductions. As secondary outcomes, the authors evaluated whether or not the speakers professional title was used in any form of address during the introduction. Female introducers were more likely to use professional titles when introducing any speaker during the first form of address compared with male introducers (96.2% [102/106] vs. 65.6% [141/215]; p < 0.001). If both introducer and speaker were female they utilized formal titles during the first form of address 97.8% (45/46) compared with male introducer/speaker pairs who utilized a formal title 72.4% (110/152) of the time ( p = 0.007). In mixed-gender groups, where the introducer was female and speaker male, formal titles were used 95.0% (57/60) of the time. Male introducers of female speakers utilized professional titles 49.2% (31/63) of the time ( p < 0.001). Therefore, in this study, women introduced by men were less likely to be addressed by professional title than were men introduced by men.
This study outside of academia exploits data on the the performance of cashiers in a French grocery store chain shedding light on how manager bias negatively affects minority job performance. The regressions show while on average minority and majority workers perform equivalently, on days where managers are unbiased, minorities perform significantly better than do majority workers. In the stores studied, cashiers work with different managers on different days and their schedules are determined quasi-randomly. When minority cashiers, but not majority cashiers, are scheduled to work with managers who are biased (as determined by an Implicit Association Test), they are absent more often, spend less time at work, scan items more slowly, and take more time between customers. This appears to be because biased managers interact less with minorities, leading minorities to exert less effort. Manager bias has consequences for the average performance of minority workers: while on average minority and majority workers perform equivalently, on days where managers are unbiased, minorities perform significantly better than do majority workers. The findings are consistent with statistical discrimination in hiring whereby because minorities under-perform when assigned to biased managers, the firm sets a higher hiring standard for minorities to get similar average performance from minority and non-minority workers.
US lab experimental study with (n=417) participants showed that if employees may react badly this has a differential impact on men's and women's self-selection into leadership roles and their performance if they become leaders. The study shows that especially low-rank employees send more angry messages to female managers, and are more likely to question their decisions.
Managerial decisions, such as promotions and demotions, please some employees and upset others. The authors examine whether having to communicate such decisions to employees, and knowing that employees may react badly, have a differential impact on men's and women's self-selection into leadership roles and their performance if they become leaders. In a novel laboratory experiment that simulates corporate decision-making, they find that women are significantly less likely to self-select into a managerial position when employees can send them angry messages. Once in the manager role, there is some evidence of gender differences in decision-making, but no difference in final outcomes, i.e., overall profits. Male and female managers use different language to motivate their employees, yet differences in communication styles emerge only when workers can send angry messages to managers. Finally, low-rank employees send more angry messages to female managers, and are more likely to question their decisions.