Introduction from Professor Sarah Sharples, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
I am delighted that this week’s EDI guest blog is written by Francesca Vinci School of Economics, who reflects on three powerful lectures on gender inequality delivered at the School by Professor Johanna Rickne of the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University.
A reflection on gender roles perception and inequality
The debate on gender inequality has gained ever-growing attention in recent years, and this is true in academia, as well as industry and politics. Questions about what can be done to improve the representation of women in education as well as the work force are topical. As part of its efforts to contribute to this movement, the School of Economics had the pleasure to host three lectures on gender inequality, held by Professor Johanna Rickne (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University and University of Nottingham). She shared insights from her own research and her expertise in the field, focusing on gender quotas, couple formation and harassment.
In the first lecture, she talked about the findings from research she conducted to assess the impact of the introduction of gender quotas in the local election process in Sweden. Prior to the change in policy, candidate lists on ballot papers were strongly influenced by party leaders and consistently had men ranking higher than women by a large margin, despite having access to information on individual’s competence, developed through years of participation in party activities.
The policy forced parties to modify the way they were forming candidate lists, by introducing a zipper quota, i.e. forcing them to alternate by gender throughout the list. Johanna and her co-authors found that the introduction of the quotas increased the overall competence of politicians elected, by increasing the quality of men selected, without affecting women’s. The authors interpret the results as evidence that mediocre men were pushed out because of the intervention and highlight that the previous status quo was the result of mediocre leaders choosing other mediocre individuals to increase the chances of their own survival.
In the first lecture, she talked about the findings from research she conducted to assess the impact of the introduction of gender quotas in the local election process in Sweden. Prior to the change in policy, candidate lists on ballot papers were strongly influenced by party leaders and consistently had men ranking higher than women by a large margin, despite having access to information on individual’s competence, developed through years of participation in party activities. The policy forced parties to modify the way they were forming candidate lists, by introducing a zipper quota, i.e. forcing them to alternate by gender throughout the list. Johanna and her co-authors found that the introduction of the quotas increased the overall competence of politicians elected, by increasing the quality of men selected, without affecting women’s. The authors interpret the results as evidence that mediocre men were pushed out because of the intervention and highlight that the previous status quo was the result of mediocre leaders choosing other mediocre individuals to increase the chances of their own survival.
In the second lecture, she discussed couple formation and women’s careers, focusing on the link between promotion to top jobs for women and the probability of divorce. She analysed Swedish data for local elections and found that women getting top jobs became more likely to divorce, whilst the result did not hold for men. Further analysis uncovered that the findings were driven by couple formation in which men were older, earned more to start with and had taken less parental leave, controlling for the couple’s ex-ante differences in background and earning potential. Johanna and her team interpreted these results as the result of a divergence in the expectations formed before the promotion within the couple. Although it is hard to draw definitive conclusions on something as intangible as expectations from quantitative analysis, this research seems to suggest that, at least for some couples, the expectations about traditional gender roles are still important for the equilibrium of a marriage. The professor also noted how a different study found that single MBA female students were less likely to report their true ambition in a context where their male peers would learn about them, as if their career-driven attitude would make them less desirable.
In the third lecture, Johanna tackled the role of harassment in perpetuating gender inequality and explained how this tends to increase with the share of the opposite sex in an occupation or workplace. A woman/man entering a male/female dominated environment breaks social norms, leading to retaliation through antagonistic behaviour. Interestingly, this suggests that men and women remain attached to some sort of identity categories, to some feeling of belonging they want to defend, and that leads them to hold on to the status quo. Moreover, as men tend to concentrate on highly paid specializations and women in lower wage sectors, this phenomenon has the effect of reinforcing segregation and income inequality.
These lectures were very insightful, they certainly had the effect of spurring debate across the department, and I hope beyond. I found myself talking in the common room with fellow PhD students as well as faculty members, as we all reflected on what we had learned and how we could use such knowledge. In my opinion, everything that was discussed in the lectures shared one common thread: the strong impact of gender role perceptions, affecting both men and women. Gender quotas were needed in Sweden because women were not selected for top ranking positions in local elections due to something other than their ability. They are also being introduced in many workplaces, as there is evidence that female candidates get overlooked due to being of childbearing age, for example. Beliefs about gender roles are also likely to affect behaviour: a woman might indeed leave her job when she becomes a mum if she feels compelled to do so by her family or her peers, and not just because of economic conditions and poor policy provisions. At the same time, a man who would like to stay at home to care for his child might feel the pressure to maintain his bread-winner role instead. Many couples conform with the traditional expectation that the man will be the provider whilst the woman will be the carer and they might crumble when gender roles get reversed, maybe because dynamics within the couple are challenged. In the lectures we also learned that men and women embrace their roles and professions and reject the outsiders as if they were threatening their identity. If gender norms and stereotypes become dogmas in people’s perception, men and women will feel lost and insecure outside them. In this case, the impact of policy efforts to level the playing field and combat bias would face the counteracting effect of gender rigid expectations and beliefs, even leading to more distortions maybe.
Achieving gender equality is a common goal, and policy makers as well as institutions such as universities can steer the ship in the right direction, but I believe we all have to put some hard work into this, by challenging our own beliefs of what gender roles are, and asking ourselves whether what we think we are supposed to do is what will make us happy.
References
All the Single Ladies: Job Promotions and the Durability of Marriage, (Olle Folke and Johanna Rickne) forthcoming, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.
Gender Quotas and the Crisis of the Mediocre Man: Theory and Evidence from Sweden, (Johanna Rickne, Tim Besley, OllemFolke and Torsten Persson) American Economic Review 107(8): 2204-2242 (2017)
'Acting Wife:' Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments, (Leonardo Bursztyn, Thomas Fujiwara and Amanda Pallais) American Economic Review, 107(11): 3288-3319 (2017)
https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/businesses-rejecting-maternity-age-candidates
Francesca Vinci
School of Economics
Monday 28 October 2019