Chapter 9 Gender and Work

Gender Discrimination and Workplace Climate

- gender discrimination in job ads, in hiring decisions, in pay, and in the evaluation of work, as well as phenomena such as the glass ceiling. Sexual harassment is also a tool of sexism in the workplace

Gender Discrimination in Job Advertisements

job ads often include gendered wording - ads for male-dominated occupations contained significantly more masculine words (e.g., leader, competitive, dominant - with masculine wording, women felt less like they belonged in that job, compared with feminine wording

Spillover

positive or negative feelings in one role might carry or spill over into another role. For example, if Maria has a productive day at work, she might bring feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction home with her, being in a generally positive mood when she interacts with her child. Spillover could also be negative, such as when her child has a tantrum at preschool drop-off, putting Maria in a bad mood just as she starts her workday.

Intro

- . Among women between the ages of 25 and 54, 71% of White women and 69% of Black women hold jobs - Women today constitute 47% of the American labor force—very close to half—compared with 29% in 1948

Pay Equity and the Wage Gap

- 1960, American women earned about 61 cents for every dollar American men earned - today, women earn about 80 cents for every dollar men earn - gap gets larger over the course of women's careers. The wage gap occurs despite the fact that, on average, women are actually better educated compared with men. - gender gap in wages is also linked to ethnicity - within every ethnic group, women earn less than men - size of the wage gap varies across ethnic groups: It is largest among White Americans, and smallest among African Americans. Note, also, the highest paid group—Asian American men—earns nearly twice as much as the lowest paid group—Hispanic/Latina women. In sum, pay inequity exists in each group, but it's most severe among Hispanic Americans. - the wage gap is smallest among younger adults and largest among older adults - wage gap is significant beginning at about age 35

Entitlement

- A related factor that may contribute to gender differences in salary negotiation is entitlement. - refers to the individual's sense of what they should receive (e.g., pay) based on who they are or what they've done. If a woman thinks she is entitled to better pay, she's more likely to ask for it. A number of studies have demonstrated that, relative to men, women have a lower sense of entitlement to pay for their work - women compare their pay with that of other women and with others in their typically female-dominated occupation. Women see other women and those in their own occupation as the appropriate comparison group because of a proximity effect—that is, those are the people who are around them and about whom they have information. - Self-protective factors may also play a part. An underpaid female librarian who is a college graduate may not want to know what a male high school graduate working in a skilled trade earns. It will just make her feel bad. Her tendency will be to compare her pay with that of other female librarians, and then she won't be doing so badly. - gender differences in standards of comparison then have a great impact on women's and men's perceptions of their entitlement to pay. Many women do not feel entitled to high pay for their work in the way that men do because (a) their pay is reasonable relative to those with whom they compare themselves, (b) their pay is reasonable compared with their own past pay, and (c) their pay is reasonable according to what is realistically attainable given restricted job opportunities for women. - result is that women have less of a sense of entitlement to high pay than men do. This in turn leads them to tolerate wage injustice. Another consequence is that others come to believe that women will settle for less in pay, precisely because many women do, leading to further bias in setting wage rates. - women have a deficit in their sense of entitlement. The other possible interpretation is that men have an inflated sense of entitlement—a sense that they are entitled to more than they are worth. - researchers have been able to manipulate men's (but not women's) sense of entitlement by priming their belief in meritocracy (O'Brien et al., 2012). That is, members of dominant groups feel more entitled when they're reminded of beliefs that justify or seem to legitimize the systems of inequality that perpetuate their dominance. Yet this effect does not occur for members of subordinate groups.

Occupational Segregation

- Most occupations are segregated by gender - most occupations are highly segregated by gender, with 90% or more of the workers coming from one gender. - 50-50 gender ratio: bus drivers, editors and reporters, and college and university teachers. - The stereotyping of occupations severely limits people's thinking about work options. - Occupations are segregated by race/ethnicity as well, and this segregation has numerous consequences - Jobs that had been shown as being done only by White people were rated as higher in status than jobs shown as being done only by Black people, with ratings for mixed-race jobs rated in between. - 51% of the wage gap is due to occupational segregation - Occupations that are predominantly held by women are almost invariably low paying. - when men and women work side by side in similar jobs, the wage gap persists - about equal numbers of men and women work as financial managers, but women in those jobs make only 65 cents for every dollar men make

Why do women, on average, negotiate for higher pay less effectively than men do?

- Negotiating for higher pay involves expressing confidence about one's ability to do the job well and advocating for one's financial worth - women tend to be more reticent to negotiate for higher pay because of the social backlash for doing so - A meta-analysis of the social backlash examined penalties for expressions of dominance, assertiveness, or agentic behavior and found that expressing dominance reduces women's hirability considerably more than it does men's, d = -0.58 - making explicit or direct demands for a raise or better job benefits has a more negative effect on women's likability than on men's, d = -0.28. In many cases, then, it seems that women (but not men) must choose between better pay and being liked by their coworkers.

Motherhood Penalty

- One factor that seems to contribute to the wage gap is women's family roles and responsibilities - Although heterosexual marriage and children raise the amount of household work for both women and men, the effect is much greater for women - motherhood penalty in wages, such that women's lifetime earnings are reduced by having children, typically by about 5% to 10% for each child - there is evidence of a fatherhood bonus - motherhood penalty is greatest for women who have three or more children and for women who have their children at younger ages - women in low-wage work may also experience a more severe motherhood penalty - affordable child care is crucial - when women have improved access to child care, there is less of a need for them to leave their jobs or work fewer hours in order to take care of their children. - Employers might discriminate against mothers, something that is illegal but difficult to prove

Race and Social Backlash

- One study compared evaluations of leaders at the intersection of race and gender, asking participants to rate leaders who were (a) Black or White, (b) female or male, and (c) dominant and assertive or communal and compassionate - The participants rated the effectiveness and expected salaries of the leaders. The researchers found that White men and Black women were rated similarly regardless of their behavior, while Black men and White women were penalized for expressing dominance. In short, the gender role incongruity, and subsequent social backlash, was defined differently based on race. Reflecting on the complexity of these findings, the researchers cautioned that Black women and White women likely face some unique barriers and bias in the workplace as well as some similar ones. In addition, because gender and racial stereotypes are intertwined, the perceived gender role incongruity of dominance or assertiveness depends on gender as well as race

Research on Negotiations

- Study: When ads were ambiguous about whether wages were negotiable, fewer women applied for the jobs and, when they did, they were less likely to initiate wage negotiations. By contrast, when ads explicitly said that wages were negotiable, more women applied and the gender difference in initiating wage negotiation was eliminated. Again, the context of having more information—such as whether a salary is negotiable—can significantly change outcomes related to the wage gap. - while men tend to negotiate better, this difference is small and, well, negotiable.

Employment Discrimination in the United States

- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." Title VII also called for the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which has the authority to investigate and, when appropriate, file lawsuits against employers for violations of these and subsequent prohibitions against employment discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of disability, genetic information, and age - hat is particularly relevant for the psychology of women and gender is the meaning of sex in Title VII. Initially, sex referred primarily to the status of being female (or male) and included protections for women during pregnancy and childbirth. Since then, the EEOC has clarified that sex includes pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Thus, Title VII affirms that, for example, a qualified job applicant cannot be denied a job because they are pregnant, a transgender woman cannot be denied access to the women's restroom at work, and a lesbian woman cannot be denied a promotion for not conforming to the employer's gendered expectations or stereotypes. Although the EEOC defines sex in this way, legal precedent has not yet been set in the federal courts. In other words, federal protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identity (rather than gender assigned at birth) and sexual orientation exist only in theory, not in practice. Thus, it is uncertain the extent to which trans and nonbinary people are legally protected from employment discrimination under Title VII. Some states provide protections, but in most it is perfectly legal to fire someone for being trans, queer, or gender nonconforming. - 1963 Equal Pay Act requires that people be paid the same wages for the same job, regardless of their gender. Yet it falls short of the standards set by the principle of comparable worth because it requires that, for gender-equal pay, the jobs must be identical, not merelycomparable. - Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 made it easier for targets of wage discrimination to sue their employers for violating Title VII, in that it clarified that the 180-day statute of limitations for employees to sue for wage discrimination resets at each paycheck. The law was named after Lilly Ledbetter, who filed a pay discrimination claim with the EEOC and sued her employer, Goodyear Tire Company, for being paid less than her male counterparts. Ledbetter worked as a manager at Goodyear for 19 years and filed her lawsuit 6 months before her retirement in 1998. Initially, her pay was similar to that of men in her position, but over time a substantial wage gap developed, which also negatively affected her social security and eventual retirement income. Her claim was ultimately denied in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. solely on the grounds that more than 180 days had passed since the discrimination started. In other words, before this law was passed, a person might be discriminated against for many years but have no grounds for legal action because the statute of limitations had run out 180 days after the first unfair paycheck. This statute of limitations is unrealistic in most cases.

Gender Discrimination in the Evaluation of Work

- a classic experiment demonstrated that even when a woman's work was identical to a man's, her work was judged to be inferior to his - gender bias was greater in jobs that were male-dominated (e.g., police officer) than in jobs that were female-dominated (e.g., teacher), d = 0.13 versus d = -0.02 - men tended to have more gender-biased ratings than women did

Expansionist Hypothesis

- assumes that people's energy resources are not limited and that multiple roles can have benefits for well-being. That is, just as a regular program of physical exercise makes one feel more energetic, not less energetic, multiple roles can be beneficial. According to this approach, the more roles one has, the more the opportunities for enhanced self-esteem, stimulation, social status, and identity. Indeed, one might be cushioned from a traumatic occurrence in one role by the support one is receiving in another role. - employment does not appear to have a negative effect on women's physical and mental health. Actually, employment seems to improve the health of both unmarried women and married women who hold positive attitudes toward employment. - importance of the quality of roles, not simply the quantity of them. Clearly, combining multiple low-quality roles isn't likely to help anyone.

Implicit Stereotypes

- automatic associations, and how they are measured with the Implicit Association Test (IAT). - people may possess implicit stereotypes that men (not women) may be rich. Moreover, when the participants in this study were asked to estimate the salaries of men or women in different occupations, they tended to estimate higher salaries for men than for women. This tendency to overestimate men's salaries was linked to the participant's implicit stereotypes. - implicit stereotypes about gender and leadership are linked to the evaluation of women's and men's work

Are We Making Any Progress?

- barriers to women's advancement today are more permeable than the rigid, impenetrable barrier suggested by the glass ceiling metaphor. Instead, they propose that a labyrinth is a more apt metaphor for women's advancement in corporations. That is, today women can make it to the top, but they often have to do it by navigating complex and sometimes indirect paths, much like maneuvering through a labyrinth.

Workplace Climate

- climate or general environment and culture of a workplace one that promotes fair and equitable treatment of all employees - 91% of Fortune 500 companies explicitly include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies, and 61% include gender identity - one national study surveyed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and found that more than half reported hiding their sexual orientation or gender identity in the workplace, and more than one-third reported feeling compelled to lie about their personal lives at work - 70% of non-LGBT respondents said it was "unprofessional" to talk about sexual orientation or gender identity at work. A workplace climate that tolerates only cisgender, heterosexual employees talking openly and honestly about their personal lives is one that excludes members of sexual and gender minority groups. Whereas a workplace climate that is inclusive and accepting retains its LGBT employees, 9% of LGBT employees surveyed said they'd left a job because the workplace climate was not accepting. Of course, not everyone has the means to leave a job because of workplace climate.

The Second Shift

- dual-earner couples with children—that is, two-parent households in which both parents work. And, as with nearly all of the research on dual-earner couples, all of the couples in Hochschild's sample were cisgender and heterosexual. She found that most employed mothers put in a full day of work on the job and then return home to perform a second shift of house and family work. By contrast, employed fathers did not work a second shift. - Men's contributions to family work have increased from 1970 to the present, yet the change has been gradual and there is still not gender equity. Women have adapted, in large part, by altering the way they spend their time. In particular, women today spend as much time with their children as they did in the 1960s. The dramatic change has been in the amount of time spent in housework. Today, survey data show employed married women spend only 1.6 hours per day on housework, compared with 1 hour per day spent by husbands - only about one-third of dual-earner couples share in the paid work, housework, and child care equally - research on the division of household labor in lesbian and gay couples indicates that these couples tend to have more egalitarian arrangements than heterosexual couples

Compensation Negotiation

- maybe women are paid less because they don't negotiate for higher pay as well as men do - The overall effect size was d = 0.20, a small gender difference, indicating that men achieved somewhat better economic outcomes than women in negotiation situations. - Moderator analyses showed that gender differences were reduced when negotiators had experience with negotiation or when the negotiators were given information about the bargaining range (for example, information about the aspects of the situation that were negotiable). In other words, the more negotiators knew about negotiation generally and about the situation specifically, the smaller the gender difference in outcomes.

Leadership Effectiveness and Gender Role Congruity

- meta-analysis of studies of the effectiveness of leaders and found that the magnitude of the gender difference in leadership effectiveness was d = -0.02. In other words, there was no gender difference. - When the leadership position was consistent with the female gender role, female leaders were judged as more effective. Similarly, when the leadership position was consistent with the female gender role, female leaders were more effective. -female and male leaders were given similar evaluations (d = 0.05). Yet this finding was qualified by leadership style: Under certain conditions women received notably poorer evaluations. If women used an autocratic or dictatorial leadership style rather than a more democratic and nurturant style, they received lower evaluations (d = 0.30). It may be, then, that it is not so much a question of bias against women leaders as bias against women leaders who do not behave in a style consistent with their female gender role. The female gender role requires that women be gentle, nurturant, and cooperative, not assertive, confrontational, or bossy.

Compensation

- positive aspects or rewards from one role compensate or make up for the stresses or costs in another role. For example, Maria's supportive and loving relationship with her partner might compensate for the stresses she's been enduring at work

role congruity theory

- role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders - theory holds that people tend to perceive an incongruity or incompatibility between leadership behaviors and the female gender role. This perceived incongruity in turn leads to two forms of prejudice. First, people perceive women less favorably than men as potential occupants of leadership positions. This gives women less access to leadership opportunities. Second, when women engage in leadership behavior, the behavior is evaluated less favorably than the same behavior enacted by a man. One implication is that female managers who engage in behaviors that, objectively, represent effective leadership may nevertheless be ineffective as leaders because subordinates react negatively to that kind of behavior coming from a woman.

Leadership and the Glass Ceiling

- term is a metaphor used to describe the barrier or ceiling that prevents women from advancing to the highest-level jobs, including the presidency. Women may be promoted and move up the ranks in their company, but there is a point past which they can't seem to rise any further. - A study of S&P 500 companies found that although 44.3% of all employees in these companies were women, women made up only 25.1% of executives and managers - At the highest level of the company, less than 5% of CEOs were women - Corporations with more women at the top actually perform better than other corporations. One study examined a sample of 353 Fortune 500 companies and found that those with the highest representation of women in top management showed better financial performance than the companies with the lowest representation of women

Comparable Worth

- the principle that people should be paid equally for work in comparable jobs—that is, jobs with equivalent responsibility, educational requirements, level in the organization, and required experience. - Several states have enacted comparable worth legislation, stating that at least all government employees must be paid on a comparable worth basis.

Scarcity Hypothesis

- which assumes that each person has a fixed amount of energy and that any role makes demands on this pool of energy. Therefore, the greater the number of roles, the greater the strain on their energy and the more negative the consequences on well-being. The conclusion from this view, then, is that as women take on increased work responsibilities in addition to their family responsibilities, stress and negative mental and physical health consequences must result.