Gender and the Economy

Author: Carmina Ravanera

  • The diversity paradox: More women at the top doesn’t mean more equity at the bottom

    The diversity paradox: More women at the top doesn’t mean more equity at the bottom

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    Highlights

    • Increasing women’s representation in senior management can boost a firm’s external reputation. However, firms that view themselves as diversity leaders often reduce internal efforts to support junior women.
    • This reduced focus on inclusive practices can lead to fewer job offers for early-career women.
    • Representation alone does not guarantee equity—especially if women lack power in decision-making roles. Empowering women through roles on hiring and diversity committees helps sustain equitable progress.

    Organizations across industries are under pressure to increase the number of women in leadership roles. But what happens after a company meets this expectation? New research by Priyanka Dwivedi and Lionel Paolella reveals an unintended consequence: in men-dominated industries, firms that appear to be leaders in senior-level gender diversity compared to their peers often stop investing in internal diversity practices. As a result, they end up offering fewer jobs to junior women.

    The diversity paradox

    The study explores what the authors call a “diversity paradox:” the perception of success at the top level can reduce the urgency to act elsewhere in the organization. When firms have more senior women than the industry average, leaders often believe they’ve done enough to address gender equity. This perception of progress leads to a drop in attention and resources devoted to diversity efforts lower down the hierarchy. In practice, this means that hiring managers may stop prioritizing gender-diverse applicant pools or fail to adopt inclusive hiring practices, reducing opportunities for early-career women.

    When firms have more senior women than the industry average, leaders often believe they’ve done enough to address gender equity. This perception of progress leads to a drop in attention and resources devoted to diversity efforts lower down the hierarchy.

    Using panel data from the largest U.S. corporate law firms between 2007 and 2015, the researchers find that firms with a higher-than-average share of women in senior management extend fewer job offers to junior women. This effect is explained by a reduction in internal diversity practices, such as targeted recruitment, mentoring, or diversity training. However, when women have substantial representation on diversity and hiring committees, these negative effects are significantly reduced.

    The problem isn’t simply that senior women aren’t doing enough. In many of these firms, senior women remain in the minority and may lack the authority, time, or organizational support to drive firm-wide change. Unless these women are given formal roles on decision-making committees, their ability to influence hiring and diversity practices is constrained. Meanwhile, men leaders may overestimate progress and redirect attention to other priorities.

    Representation is only part of the equation

    This research offers a critical insight for companies striving to improve gender diversity: representation at the top is only part of the equation. True progress requires continuous engagement with internal practices that support women at all levels. Firms that appear ahead of the curve may still fall short in fostering inclusive practices at lower levels. Leaders must resist the temptation to “check the box” and instead commit to ongoing action.

    Companies can establish accountability structures that formally include women in decision-making around hiring and diversity. Having women on these committees empowers them to advocate for equity in ways that are recognized and rewarded. Additionally, firms can invest in programs that go beyond surface-level diversity—such as inclusive mentoring, targeted outreach to women candidates, and internal assessments that identify where systems may still disadvantage women.

    Leaders must resist the temptation to “check the box” and instead commit to ongoing action.

    Managers across the organization can also be reminded that progress in one area does not mean the work is done. Equity efforts should be seen as part of a long-term commitment to fairness, culture change, and sustained inclusion, requiring attention, resources, and leadership buy-in at all levels.

    ______
    Research brief prepared by:

    Grusha Agarwal

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    Title

    Tick Off the Gender Diversity Box: Examining the Cross-Level Effects of Women’s Representation in Senior Management

    Author

    Priyanka Dwivedi and Lionel Paolella

    Source

    Academy of Management Journal

    Published

    2024

    Link

    https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2021.0506

    Research brief prepared by

    Grusha Agarwal

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  • May 2025

    May 2025

  • April 2025

    April 2025

  • Beyond token leadership: Understanding women’s faster path to executive roles

    Beyond token leadership: Understanding women’s faster path to executive roles

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    Highlights

    • Women remain vastly underrepresented in high-ranking executive positions. Those who become top executives in Fortune 100 companies reach these positions approximately 2.14 years faster than their male counterparts, largely due to their superior qualifications and effective internal promotion practices.
    • The rapid advancement in women’s talent disappears after a second woman executive has been appointed, indicating that institutional pressures work but do not ensure sustained gender parity.
    • Achieving gender equality requires robust organizational processes and cultural reforms to address underlying biases about leadership potential and overcome organizational backlash.

    The path to executive leadership has traditionally been marked by significant gender disparities, with women underrepresented in top corporate positions. In 1980, a single woman was counted to be holding a high-ranking executive position at a Fortune 100 company. In 2011, women held 18 % of executive positions despite comprising 47% of the overall workforce. This disparity has prompted organizations to implement various diversity initiatives and face increasing institutional pressure to improve gender representation at the executive level. However, the effectiveness and sustainability of these efforts, as well as their impact on women’s career trajectories, have remained largely unexplored.

    Examining speed of advancement

    At the heart of this research is speed of advancement—how quickly executives reach top positions from their career start. This metric offers a unique lens through which to understand gender diversity in organizations, moving beyond traditional focuses on representation percentages or compensation differences. Speed of advancement captures both individual career progression and organizational decision-making or talent programs, providing insights into how companies respond to diversity pressures and how career paths may differ between men and women who ultimately reach executive positions.

    Professors Rocío Bonet, Peter Cappelli, and Monika Hamori investigated whether women who reached top executive positions in Fortune 100 companies experienced different speeds of advancement compared to men executives. Their study examined the career histories of top executives in Fortune 100 companies during 2001 and 2011, analyzing factors such as education, work experience, and internal versus external mobility. Unlike previous research that focused primarily on executive compensation or representation statistics, this study delved into company records and appointment patterns to understand the evolution of executive careers.

    The “one and done” effect for women

    The research revealed several striking patterns in executive advancement. First, women executives reached their positions approximately 2.14 years faster than men executives, even after controlling for education, experience, and other relevant factors. This advantage was particularly pronounced in internal promotions, where companies have more direct control over talent development. The speed difference was evident from early career stages, with women’s first promotions occurring notably faster (6.6 years versus 8+ years for men).

    These women seemed uniquely poised for high-level positions, as they tended to be better qualified than men when starting the job. But this advantage persisted even when controlling for such initial qualifications and performance quality, suggesting that the difference wasn’t solely attributable to superior qualifications.

    These findings contradict the well-known “glass cliff” hypothesis, which suggests that women are primarily promoted during periods of financial challenge. As Professor Bonet puts it: “Internal career mobility is really where the action is happening. This suggests that firms can create an environment where talent—especially underrepresented talent—can flourish.”

    However, a crucial secondary finding emerged: the advancement advantage for women disappeared once companies had more than one woman in top executive positions, and in some cases, the pattern reversed. This “one and done” effect suggests that institutional pressures may drive initial appointments but fail to create sustained change.

    …the advancement advantage for women disappeared once companies had more than one woman in top executive positions, and in some cases, the pattern reversed.

    The findings suggest a complex interplay between institutional pressures, organizational responses, and career outcomes. While accelerated advancement for some women demonstrates that organizations can effectively fast-track diverse talent when motivated, the disappearance of this advantage after initial appointments raises concerns about the sustainability of diversity efforts.

    For Bonet, this research is proof that firms can contribute to meaningful progress in gender equality if they are motivated to do so. While the results suggest that firms without sufficient representation of women at the top did well at identifying and supporting high-ability women, Bonet emphasizes the significant downsides: firms may be returning to operational practices through which women are less likely to progress than their equally or lesser-qualified counterparts. This disheartening reality leads Bonet to conclude that addressing gender biases remains a crucial societal challenge.

    Positive change should not be short-lived

    Bonet and colleagues’ work shows that firms have agency in the extent to which they can support their women employees. Women employed at firms facing institutional pressures were able to advance faster than their equally or lesser-qualified men. This is particularly important in a context of under-representation, where without any fast-tracking, the path to gender parity would take over a hundred years.

    The key takeaways for organizations are:

    • First, women remain vastly underrepresented in high-ranking executive positions. The research strongly suggests that an effective way for firms to change is to fast-track qualified women internally. The data shows that firms are good at identifying and advancing qualified and often over-qualified women.
    • Second, firms should ensure this positive change is not short-lived and navigate possible organizational backlash. For example, doubts about fast-tracked women’s merits can weaken their effectiveness and should be actively counteracted.

    The findings suggest that while mandating diversity outcomes may create short-term progress, sustainable change requires deeper cultural and structural changes, including addressing underlying assumptions and biases about leadership potential.

    ______
    Research brief prepared by:

    Manuela R. Collis

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    Title

    Gender differences in speed of advancement: An empirical examination of top executives in the Fortune 100 firms

    Author

    Rocío Bonet, Peter Capelli, and Monika Hamori

    Source

    Strategic Management Journal

    Published

    2020

    Link

    https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3125

    Research brief prepared by

    Manuela R. Collis

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  • It takes two: Men’s caregiving roles shape women’s career aspirations

    It takes two: Men’s caregiving roles shape women’s career aspirations

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    Highlights:

    • Women’s career and family aspirations are influenced not only by their ambitions, but also by their perceptions of men’s increasing involvement in caregiving and domestic roles.
    • Women who believe men are taking on more caregiving roles than before are more likely to envision themselves as primary breadwinners, while those with stagnant views on men’s roles have expectations of becoming the primary caregiver.
    • Policies that promote men’s caregiving involvement are essential not only to reduce caregiving burdens on women, and but also to expand their career possibilities.

    Can women’s perceptions of men’s domestic involvement shape how they imagine their career and family? Researchers have long studied how gendered stereotypes have constrained women’s professional choices, impacting women’s career and labour market decisions. However, recent research suggests that women’s career and family aspirations are not solely shaped by their own ambitions, but also by their expectations about men’s involvement in domestic roles.

    Men’s roles influence women’s aspirations

    In a 2019 study by Alyssa Croft, Toni Schmader, and Katharina Block, the authors used five experiments and a comprehensive meta-analysis to uncover how women’s perceptions of men’s domestic involvement might impact their career trajectories. Prior research had not directly tested whether changes in men’s roles influence how women imagine their futures.

    They found that women who are primed to believe that men’s domestic involvement is increasing are significantly more likely to envision themselves as primary breadwinners and less likely to foresee themselves as the primary caregiver. The authors introduce the “complementarity hypothesis,” which proposes that women are more likely to imagine themselves as primary economic providers if they believe men are becoming increasingly engaged in caregiving.

    …women who are primed to believe that men’s domestic involvement is increasing are significantly more likely to envision themselves as primary breadwinners

    The experiments also showed that women who were exposed to changing expectations that men were performing greater caregiving roles were more likely to expect equal sharing of both breadwinning and caregiving responsibilities. Meanwhile, women primed with messages suggesting slow or stagnant change in men’s caregiving roles were significantly more likely to anticipate becoming the primary caregiver.

    Policies for men’s caregiving

    Women have entered the workforce in greater numbers over recent decades, yet they continue to bear a disproportionate share of family responsibilities. These findings suggest that the perception that men’s caregiving contributions are stagnant may reinforce traditional gender roles, leading women to anticipate becoming the primary caregiver in their future families.

    However, shifting social norms about male caregiving can expand women’s perceived career possibilities. Traditionally, there has been a focus on finding ways to change stereotypes about women in the workplace or their caregiving duties, but this research sheds light on the need for supporting policies, cultural narratives, and workplace practices that promote men’s caregiving involvement, which could expand women’s career aspirations and reduce caregiving burdens.

    …this research sheds light on the need for supporting policies, cultural narratives, and workplace practices that promote men’s caregiving involvement, which could expand women’s career aspirations

    In addition, the authors found that although men’s changing norms might influence women’s role expectations, women might not be aware that this is happening, or why. This might point to the need to discuss these embedded norms and ideals explicitly, or investigate how subconscious perceptions shape how women might view their caregiving or economic responsibilities, particularly in the context of changing gender roles.

    In sum, the findings show that men’s potential caregiving roles play a pivotal role in enabling women to pursue career paths, which have been historically constrained by traditional family role expectations. Future research can address whether men also experience complementary patterns in their expected future roles if they face new information about women’s changing roles.

    ______
    Research brief prepared by:

    Laura Lam

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    Title

    Life in the Balance: Are Women’s Possible Selves Constrained by Men’s Domestic Involvement?

    Author

    Alyssa Croft, Toni Schmader, and Katharina Block          

    Source

    Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

    Published

    2019

    Link

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167218797294

    Research brief prepared by

    Laura Lam

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  • Changing the five-star rating scale can eliminate effects of racism on digital platform workers

    Changing the five-star rating scale can eliminate effects of racism on digital platform workers

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    Highlights

    • Customers on digital labour platforms often discriminate against racial minority workers in evaluations by rating them lower than similar white workers.
    • This study found that changing rating scales from five-star to two-point scales (thumbs up or thumbs down) reduced discrimination against racial minority workers because customers could only choose between “good” and “bad” performance. This change also eliminated the pay gap for these workers.
    • A simple adjustment in rating methods offers a promising organizational intervention to create fairer work conditions for racial minorities.

    Today, digital labour platforms are ubiquitous, used for services such as food delivery, ridesharing, and home services. These digital labour platforms often ask customers to rate workers’ performance, and ratings can affect workers’ pay and future work. But what happens when customers have racist beliefs? Research shows that negative stereotypes and biases can cause customers to unfairly lower ratings for racial minorities compared to similar white workers, and these biases are hard to address.

    Types of rating scales affect ratings

    Researchers Tristan L. Botelho, Sora Jun, Demetrius Humes, and Katherine A. DeCelles investigated how platforms can mitigate customers’ racial discrimination in evaluations. Prior research shows that modern racism often emerges in subtle rather than blatant ways. The authors proposed that five-point rating scales can encourage discrimination to emerge because these scales give customers the option to slightly downgrade evaluations while still rationalizing that it is a good rating (e.g., downgrading from five to four stars). A two-point scale removes this option, forcing customers to focus solely on good or bad performance and making them less likely to score a racial minority worker as bad if their performance was good.

    The authors studied an online home services platform that changed its customer evaluation system from five-stars to thumbs up/thumbs down. Through analyzing job and rating scale data, they discovered that racial minority workers prior to the change had an average rating of 4.72 stars, compared to 4.79 stars for white workers. Although this difference may seem small, it affected workers’ income rate and translated to racial minority workers making 91 cents for each dollar earned by white workers.

    After the change to a thumbs up/thumbs down scale, the difference in ratings between white and racial minority workers was eliminated, with both groups receiving the highest ratings around 95% of the time. The change also closed the gap in pay.

    After the change to a thumbs up/thumbs down scale, the difference in ratings between white and racial minority workers was eliminated, with both groups receiving the highest ratings around 95% of the time.

    The authors confirmed their findings with further experiments, asking online participants to rate groups of workers with equivalent performance and different races. They found that those who showed stronger racist beliefs were less likely to rate racial minority workers poorly with a thumbs up/thumbs down scale than with a five-star scale. They also found that encouraging evaluators to rate solely based on good or bad performance, even with a five-star scale, helped reduce racial bias in ratings.

    Structural change can reduce effects of discrimination

    Thus far, there has been little success in finding ways to mitigate racial discrimination from customers towards workers in evaluations, which is especially important in a gig economy. This study shows that changing the way customers evaluate can reduce the effects of their racist beliefs on worker income. Organizations can shift away from the common five-star rating scale to help create a fairer work environment.

    Katherine DeCelles, one of the authors, notes that their research “highlights the importance of structural solutions to help reduce the impact of customers’ bias on workers, given that they cannot be trained or selected the way that managers can. This emphasizes the important role that an organization–here, the design of an evaluation system on a platform—can play in mitigating societal inequality.”

    “This emphasizes the important role that an organization—here, the design of an evaluation system on a platform—can play in mitigating societal inequality.”

    This change may also have similar impacts for discrimination based on gender, age, and disability, although further research is needed. Future research can also explore whether these effects hold outside of online evaluations, such as in in-person workplaces.

    ______
    Research brief prepared by:

    Carmina Ravanera

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    Title

    Scale dichotomization reduces customer racial discrimination and income inequality

    Author

    Tristan L. Botelho, Sora Jun, Demetrius Humes and Katherine A. DeCelles           

    Source

    Nature

    Published

    2025

    Link

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08599-7

    Research brief prepared by

    Carmina Ravanera

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  • Who gets feedback, who gives it: Gendered patterns in workplace assessments

    Who gets feedback, who gives it: Gendered patterns in workplace assessments

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    Highlights

    • Women are more likely to take on low-promotability tasks that are essential to organizations but often go unrecognized and unrewarded, such as providing detailed feedback.
    • In this study, women supervisors gave more thorough and helpful feedback, yet women supervisees were less likely to receive meaningful evaluations, regardless of their supervisor’s gender.
    • Addressing hidden inequalities in workplace assessments, both in who does the work and who benefits from it, can help create a more equitable workplace.

    Assessments are a ubiquitous part of organizational life. Across industries, performance evaluations play a central role in hiring, promotion, compensation, and dismissal decisions.

    Despite the prevalence and significance of assessments, we know surprisingly little about who performs the work of assessment, how they do it, and with what consequences. In response to this gap, Professor Laura Nelson and her colleagues set out to examine: Who provides feedback in organizations? Who does it well and equitably? And how might assessment practices reinforce or mitigate social inequalities?

    Using real-world behavioral data that includes both numerical ratings and written comments, the authors analyzed 33,456 in-the-moment evaluations of 359 resident physicians by 285 attending physicians in emergency medicine across eight accredited U.S. hospitals over a two-year period (2013–2015). The research team combined qualitative and quantitative methods with machine learning to examine the amount, context, and content of feedback. The analysis reveals important findings about how gender shapes the delivery and quality of workplace assessments and how feedback practices may reproduce or challenge inequality at work.

    Gendered patterns in high-quality, helpful assessments

    The data show that women attendings were more likely to offer motivating and constructive assessments: they not only provided more feedback, but their comments were more often helpful, task-specific, and reassuring. In contrast, men attendings’ assessments tended to be more minimalist. They were more likely to include a numeric evaluation with no written feedback or offer brief comments that are not particularly constructive to either the resident or the training program.

    …women attendings were more likely to offer motivating and constructive assessments: they not only provided more feedback, but their comments were more often helpful, task-specific, and reassuring.

    Despite women attendings being more likely to provide helpful feedback, both women and men attendings demonstrated a positive bias toward men residents. Specifically, men residents were more likely to receive helpful feedback or reassuring comments from both men and women attendings, while women residents were more likely to receive comments only in response to an error. This dynamic creates what the researchers termed “gender double jeopardy in low-promotability tasks,” where although more women in supervisory roles take the time to provide high-quality feedback, women subordinates do not fully benefit from their supervisors’ efforts.

     Encouraging high-quality feedback for all

    Professor Nelson emphasizes that solutions should not focus solely on changing women’s behavior or reducing their contributions. Instead of telling women to “just say no,” organizations should consider how to encourage men, and any others not providing high-quality feedback, to step up and fulfill this crucial role.

    As she explains: “The solution is often, ‘What should women do differently?’… but the takeaway from this is not, ‘How do we fix women? How do we change women?’ Rather, it’s, ‘How do we change the section of men who aren’t giving that good feedback to fulfill this very important role in these organizations? And what organizational structures can we put in place to even it out by bringing the men up to the level of women, rather than bringing women down to the level of men?’”

    “…the takeaway from this is not, ‘How do we fix women?’ … Rather, it’s, ‘How do we change the section of men who aren’t giving that good feedback to fulfill this very important role in these organizations?”

    From this perspective, the study highlights several key implications:

    • Shift away from “just say no” solutions
      Rather than focusing on advice that tells women to “just say no,” these findings underscore the importance of training everyone on how to give effective workplace assessments and avoid letting implicit biases influence evaluations.
    • Distribute assessment labor more evenly
      The data show a stark imbalance where a small number of attendings shoulder the majority of feedback labour: many men and women did not provide great feedback, and a few men and women provided an enormous amount of consistently high-quality feedback. To avoid gaps in support for early-career employees and students, organizations should consider strategies that encourage all supervisors to offer high-quality feedback. This could include offering simple guidelines (e.g., “Attending physicians typically write an average of three sentences referencing two concrete medical tasks in each comment.”)
    • Reward quality, not just quantity
      Incentives or recognition programs should value not only how much feedback someone gives but also the quality and effectiveness of that feedback.
    ______
    Research brief prepared by:

    Kuan Su

    [/fusion_text][fusion_separator style_type=”none” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” top_margin=”20″ bottom_margin=”20″ alignment=”center” /][fusion_button link=”https://www.gendereconomy.org/research-briefs/” target=”_blank” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” color=”custom” button_gradient_top_color=”#62bd19″ button_gradient_bottom_color=”#62bd19″ button_gradient_top_color_hover=”#00c2e2″ button_gradient_bottom_color_hover=”#00c2e2″ stretch=”yes” icon_position=”left” icon_divider=”no” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″]See more research briefs[/fusion_button][fusion_separator style_type=”none” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” top_margin=”20″ bottom_margin=”20″ alignment=”center” /][fusion_recent_posts layout=”default” hover_type=”none” columns=”3″ number_posts=”3″ offset=”0″ pull_by=”category” cat_slug=”research-briefs” thumbnail=”yes” title=”yes” meta=”no” meta_author=”no” meta_categories=”no” meta_date=”yes” meta_comments=”yes” meta_tags=”no” excerpt=”no” excerpt_length=”35″ strip_html=”yes” scrolling=”no” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ /][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_4″ layout=”1_4″ center_content=”no” hover_type=”none” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ last=”true” first=”false” border_sizes_top=”0″ border_sizes_bottom=”0″ border_sizes_left=”0″ border_sizes_right=”0″ background_blend_mode=”overlay” min_height=”” link=””][fusion_title title_type=”text” rotation_effect=”bounceIn” display_time=”1200″ highlight_effect=”circle” loop_animation=”off” highlight_width=”9″ highlight_top_margin=”0″ title_link=”off” link_target=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_display=”normal,sticky” class=”briefsummary” content_align=”left” size=”3″ text_shadow=”no” text_shadow_blur=”0″ text_stroke=”no” text_stroke_size=”1″ text_overflow=”none” gradient_font=”no” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ style_type=”none” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_delay=”0″]

    Title

    Taking the Time: The Implications of Workplace Assessment for Organizational Gender Inequality

    Author

    Laura K. Nelson, Alexandra Brewer, Anna S. Mueller, Daniel M. O’Connor, Arjun Dayal, and Vineet M. Arora

    Source

    American Sociological Review

    Published

    2023

    Link

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00031224231184264

    Research brief prepared by

    Kuan Su

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