Gender Debate » glass ceiling

What to do against gender discrimination in science?

genderdebate — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:04:47 +0000

Or how ‘John’ was offered more money and respect than ‘Jennifer’ despite having the same qualifications. An anonymous senior scientist on what must be done to change attitudes.

I completed my PhD in 2001, when approximately 45% of biomedical PhD students in the UK were women. At my current level – junior professor – this percentage drops to 30%, before falling to 15% at the top professorial level. There have been many attempts to explain why.

A commonly voiced hypothesis is that women rule themselves out of the race by deciding to have children (the average age of completion of postdoctoral training is between 28 and 35), and it is true there does seem to be a relatively high proportion of childless women in academic science. However, there are enough counter-examples (Nobel laureates such as Elizabeth Blackburn, Ada Yonath and Carol Greider to name just three) to make this scenario unlikely to be the whole explanation.

Then, of course, there is the suggestion that there are innate differences in the ability of men and women to do science, most famously put forward by president of Harvard University Larry Summers with his dribblings about “daddy and mummy trucks”. In the fallout from that performance it was noted that the percentage of tenured job offers made to women had dropped dramatically since Summers took office, something he pledged to rectify.

Can it be that women are treated less fairly than men? A deceptively simple piece of research led by Jo Handelman at Yale University has recently suggested that they are. The authors created application forms purporting to be from a recent science graduate wanting a laboratory manager job and asking for feedback. In total, 127 faculty members were asked to rank the candidate in terms of competence, starting salary they would offer, willingness to mentor the candidate, and likeability. The only difference in the applications was the name of the student – 63 were from “John” and 64 were from “Jennifer”.

The results were stark. Jennifer was ranked less competent than John and was offered a median starting salary almost $4,000 lower than John. In addition, the faculty was less willing to mentor Jennifer, but, strangely, found her to be more likeable. All this from a piece of paper. I should point out here that there was no statistically significant difference between the responses from male or female faculty, nor were there differences between levels of faculty, suggesting this is not a hierarchical bias.

So, what does this mean? The study was nuanced – the CV was deliberately designed to represent a good, but not stellar, candidate. This is a key point. When faced with a candidate who is clearly exceptional, gender rarely matters. This is because it doesn’t require thought to come to the conclusion of excellence. By the same token, a candidate who is really not good is also definable without much thought. However, for the large chunk of people who inhabit the “grey zone”, where subjective and objective evaluations matter, the outcome of this study indicates that men get the breaks where women do not.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America last autumn, has prompted much debate and soul searching among my colleagues. Reactions have been quite eye-opening. Many people, including myself, were largely unsurprised. Several non-scientists found it hard to believe that the same CV could be evaluated so differently, and with such serious consequences in terms of pay and mentoring. Yet since the beginning of my career, I have always been acutely aware that I need to do better than a man to stand a chance of being hired ahead of him. Several people welcomed what they saw as concrete data to support their observations and Handelsman was listed as one of 2012′s top 10 people by the journal Nature.

A less palatable reaction was one of irritation, and dismissal of the findings. Despite the fact that hard data is difficult to argue with, many scientists managed it. My own explanation for this reaction is that on a subconscious level, data like this support the implication that men in science didn’t necessarily get there on merit alone, but also because their female competitors were being discriminated against. That must be quite threatening and hence provoked a defensive response.

What are we going to do about it? Here’s where it gets tricky. The outcome of the study suggests that simply increasing the numbers of women on hiring panels is unlikely to solve the problem as the bias exists in all of us. The authors suggest educating scientists to be more aware of the potential biases that exist.

We should go further than this. Since this study shows that the discrimination occurs, at least in part, at the stage of the evaluation of the paper application, I would insist that hiring committees shortlist the “best” female applicants. Such positive discrimination is controversial. However, if 100 candidates apply, and six are shortlisted, how hard would it be to ensure the top two female candidates are also shortlisted? It would certainly allow the next step of the evaluation to be done in person, where many of the subconscious influences are no longer invoked.

On a final note, the persistent lack of women in the higher echelons of science is a constant source of lively debate. Several elder colleagues of mine have insisted that it is only a matter of time before things even out. However, I think this study shows that the discrimination occurs against women at the outset of their careers, and that it is systemic. Without a proactive approach to address the problem, we will be stuck at the current numbers for the next 100 years. This is not something I want to have to explain to either my son or my daughter.

Source: The Guardian UK Monday 14 January 2013

Related article on this blog: Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students

Article by Handelman et al: Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students

International Women’s Day 2012: Time for quotas!

genderdebate — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:57:06 +0000

The International Women’s Day on March 8 traditionally celebrates women’s economic, political and social achievements. On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2012, time is ripe to ask why gender gaps persist in many fields. Gender quotas in business and politics would help overcoming these gaps.

The UN theme for 2012 is “Empower Women – End Hunger and Poverty” – a theme that is shared by many organizations aiming at reducing gender inequality in developing countries. At the same time in developed countries, several organizations call for more political action to reduce the enduring gender gaps in political and economic participation. Even though women’s labor market participation has been increasing constantly over the past decades in developed countries, all OECD countries are still marked by important gender wage gaps and an underrepresentation of women in decision-making bodies in politics and business.

               Image Source: Spiegel Online International

The average gender wage gap in the EU (27) adds up to 17,5% – a level that has practically stayed unchanged over the last years. In 2012, women still make up only 11.7% of boards at the top 3001 European companies. Women’s share in national parliaments is somewhat higher in most European countries, but no country reaches the 50% threshold (for example: France 19%, UK 22%, Germany 33%).

The persisting barriers for women to climb the career ladder in business and politics are mainly explained by pointing to difficulties for women to combine work with child rearing. However, many countries have been increasing their efforts to improve the work/life balance of parents over the recent years, for example by investing more and more in public child care services. In Europe, these investments have been particularly encouraged by the European Commission (“Barcelona objectives”). These efforts have certainly increased women’s supplied working hours, but no or very little change can be observed for the gender gap in occupations by sector and by status. However, differences in occupations are the major cause for the persisting gender wage gap. Some ask for patience now by claiming that a reduction of occupational and wage differences between men and women simply will set in with some time delay. Others are less optimistic and blame continuous gender discrimination for the persisting underrepresentation of women in parliaments, managerial positions, advisory boards etc.

In any case, it is time to give women’s decision making power a shot in the arm. How? The most efficient way is to introduce gender quotas in decision making bodies. The International Women’s Day 2012 is widely used to promote the idea of introducing gender quotas in politics and the economic sphere and more and more doubters are ready to overcome their reservations.

Germany, for example, is in the midst of a debate over gender quotas at newspapers. Female journalists in Germany sent an open letter to 250 editors and publishers demanding a quota that would ensure that at least 30 percent of all executive positions in media enterprises are filled by women. The letter states that now only two percent of those positions are held by women.

This year’s World Economic Forum also made a commitment to increase the visibility of women by instituting a gender quota. The forum has requested from their strategic partners that for every five executives that are attending the meeting, one of the executives must be a woman.

The European Commission currently consults on mandatory quotas for women on company boards of large European companies to tackle the persistent lack of gender diversity. The majority of commissioners state that self-regulation of companies so far has not brought satisfactory results. The lack of women in top jobs in the business world is considered as seriously harming Europe’s competitiveness and hampering economic growth.

Several EU member states including Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have already introduced rules on gender quotas for company boards. Unfortunately, introducing gender quotas for regional and national parliaments is rarely on the political agenda in Europe. It is high time that Europe breaks the glass ceiling that continues to bar female talent from getting to the top, not only in Europe’s listed companies but also in politics.

Source: Angela Luci’s own contribution

Reducing the gender wage gap in Europe – how to tackle the task ?

genderdebate — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:23:43 +0000

Women in Europe currently earn on average 17.5% less than men. Even though there is an increasing political will to reduce the gender wage gap, initiatives often do not have much impact, as the real reasons for the persisiting gender wage gap tend to be misidentified.

At EU level, the gender pay gap is defined as the relative difference in the average gross hourly earnings of women and men within the economy as a whole. Even though there exists a significant gender pay gap in every European country, there are considerable differences between the Member States in this regard, with the pay gap ranging from less than 10% in Italy, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Belgium to more than 20% in Slovakia, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Germany, United Kingdom and Greece and more than 25% in Estonia and Austria.

Source: Data: Eurostat (2008) except for EE (2007); Image: European Commission

The gender pay gap differs widely between France and Germany, which are the both European countries with the most socioeconomic similarities. In Germany, women earn on average 23.2% less than men, whereas in France, women earn “only” 17.1% less than men. In addition, salary gaps have been rising continuously in Germany for more than a decade, while wage gaps have been almost constant in France since 2000 and even sank in the early 2000s. The increase in the gender wage gap in Germany has been especially pronounced in recent years, as the low pay sector has been largely expanded since 2000 and especially during the recent economic crisis. In France, on the other hand, the legally binding minimum wage helps prevent such a development. The fact that less women in France are in precarious employment and more women are employed full time further reduces the gender wage gap as compared to Germany to a significant extent.

The European Commission cites several causes for the persisting gender wage gap in European countries: The most frequently cited reason is labour market segregation: women tend to work more in sectors and statuses that are not very well paid. Many girls still limit their career choices to a narrow range of jobs despite their superior academic performance (horizontal segregation). A high proportion of women is employed in the social services sector, with the majority employed in the lower income segment (for example as elementary school teacher, nurse, social worker, cleaning lady, saleswoman, child care provider), which leads to the fact that women are significantly under-represented in the industry sectors. The job groups in which women are overrepresented usually offer worse career opportunities and lower pay in comparison to male-dominated jobs. Female-dominated jobs are also paid less simply because of their lower social status as “women’s jobs”. Typically masculine job categories, on the other hand, such as engineering and finance, are usually very well paid. At the same time, men and women are employed on different hierarchy levels (vertical segregation). Women tend to get promoted less frequently and find it more difficult to attain management positions. Thus, across all sectors, women are less present in supervisory boards.

However, only a small proportion of the gender wage gap is attributable to differences in productivity between men and women, which result from differences in training, choice of the sector, choice of working hours or limited flexibility caused by family commitments. Career paths of qualified women are blocked by informal and often invisible barriers – this phenomenon is known as the ‘glass ceiling’. The glass ceiling limits women’s access to networks and information within companies. Furthermore, there is evidence that male bosses tend to favour and promote male employees rather than female employees in many companies. Women’s careers often come to a halt when they reach middle management. It is mainly women themselves who come to suffer from this. The wage inequality has an impact throughout women’s lives and especially when they retire as lower salaries lead to lower pensions and a higher risk of poverty in older age. However, there is rising awareness that company’s executive management stands to lose or never attains important competencies held by women stuck in middle management.

Since recently, one can observe an increasing political will to reduce the gender wage gap allover Europe. “Equal pay” initiatives and laws often call for paying women and men the same wage when both do the same job. However, this “direct” wage discimination only accounts for a small part of the gender wage gap. The main main reason why women earn less than men is not because they earn less for doing the same job, but because they do NOT do the same job! Women are underrepresented in the industry sector and in management positions and therefore do not have the same career and wage options than men.

Fighting against the gender wage gap therefore primarily implies enlarging career perspectives for women and encouraging girls and women to take on typically “male” jobs while putting typically “female” soft skills (empathy, social competence, conflict management) into use. At the same time, boys and men should be encouraged to do typical female jobs, especially in social services. This requires gender-conscious school pedagogy to encourage children to choose gender-atypical careers and to break up gender stereotypes.

To further boost women’s career development, there should be mechanisms to help women make the transition from marginal work arrangements to a regular full-time job. Publicly funded initiatives for qualifications and continuing education may be a good start. The introduction of a legally binding minimum wage would also represent an important step towards financial independence and social security for women employed in the low pay sector. In order to advance gender equality in the business world, a female quota for executive and supervisory boards of large companies would be appropriate. Gender mainstreaming and women’s advancement programmes should contain clear goal definitions, responsibilities and binding sanction mechanisms both in the private and the public sector.

Sources: Blog author’s own contribution; FES Report Angela Luci; European Commission