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on Gender |
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Issue of 2025–01–06
eight papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Rozi Kumari (Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University); A. Ganesh Kumar (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research); Rajendra Vaidya (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research) |
| Abstract: | Despite impressive growth performance, empowering women and bridging gender gaps in entrepreneurship remains a key challenge for India. Given the crucial role of finance functioning of businesses, we investigate whether females face disproportionate barriers in seeking and receiving loans. Using nationally representative datasets from the World Banks's World Enterprise survey (WBES) data for 2014 and 2022, we analyse the role of manager's and owner's gender in the loan seeking behaviour and loan approval rate. On the demand side, we find that female managers are less likely to seek loans while female owners are more likely to seek loans. Particularly, female managed firms even with male owners are less likely to seek loans while male managed firms with female owners are more likely to apply for loan. On the supply side, we find that loans of female managed firms are less likely to be approved whereas female owned firms do not have significantly less chances of loan approval. Interestingly, the female owned firms with male managers do not face any significant chance of loan denial but male owned firms with female managers have higher and significant chances of loan denial. Female owned and female managed firms also have lower chances of loan approval. |
| Keywords: | Female, Entrepreneurship, Loans, Heckprobit, India, Discrimination |
| JEL: | J16 L26 G2 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2024-025 |
| By: | Marianna Brunetti (CEIS & DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Annalisa Fabretti (DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Mariangela Zoli (CEIS & DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the gender gap in academic promotions. The theoretical model proposed, in which men and women collectively negotiate their career upgrades but with different bargaining power, predicts that the likelihood of career progression for women depends negatively on the share of female scholars among the eligible candidates and positively on the available resources and women’s bargaining power. We relate the latter to metrics of women’s relative representation, such as the Glass-Ceiling Index, the Female Ratio, and the Share of Females in the boards in charge of deciding about those promotions. Leveraging a novel and suitably built dataset covering the universe of Italian Universities’ Departments, we find robust evidence supporting these predictions. In particular, the probability of women being upgraded to associate and full professors is strongly and positively associated with the shares of women in the pool of professors in charge of deciding about those promotions. |
| Keywords: | gender gap, bargaining power, gender representation, career advancement, academia |
| JEL: | J16 J71 J53 D79 |
| Date: | 2024–12–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:590 |
| By: | Sophie Harnay (EconomiX (UMR 7235), UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, CNRS, 200 avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre cedex, France); Fabienne Llense (EconomiX (UMR 7235), UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, CNRS, 200 avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre cedex, France); Antoine Rebérioux (LADYSS (UMR 7533), Université Paris Cité, 8 place Paul Ricoeur, 75013 Paris, France); Gwenaël Roudaut (Département dâéconomie, Ecole Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau cedex, France) |
| Abstract: | In 2011, Britain and France introduced affirmative action policies aiming at improving board gender mix in listed companies. While the reforms were similar in terms of target and timing, Britain opted for a âsoft lawâ (comply or explain) approach, while France enacted a mandatory quota. Using difference-in-differences analyses, we examine the differential impact of these two reforms on board composition and on women empowerment within boards. We first show that the quota has been associated with a more rapid adjustment of the gender mix without significant disruptive effects on board composition. However, we report that the quota has induced a more limited access of women to monitoring committees within boards, relative to soft law. As these committees are the most influential, this evidence shows that the quota came at a cost when considering within-board womenâs influence. |
| Keywords: | company boards, gender inequalities, leadership positions, quota, soft law, board committees |
| JEL: | J16 J78 K22 G34 G38 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afd:wpaper:2408 |
| By: | Müge Süer (The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH)); Nicola Cerutti (Oasis Loss Modelling Framework Ltd.); Jana Friedrichsen (Kiel University); Gyula Seres (National University of Singapore, N.1 Institute for Health and Institute for Digital Medicine) |
| Abstract: | Women are often perceived as more compliant than men; however, the literature provides inconclusive evidence. Using a novel experimental design comprising two complementary experiments, we test this claim in online samples representative of the German adult population. The first experiment (N=1600) features a probabilistic social dilemma game (PDG) in which participants can increase their individual payoff at the expense of exposing themselves and their group to probabilistic losses. In two treatment conditions, they receive either a recommendation on socially optimal behavior or a recommendation and information on weakly non-compliant peer behavior. We find that the recommendation strongly affects behavior but more so for women than for men. However, information on the non-compliant behavior of others does not induce significantly different responses in men and women. In the second experiment (N=522), we elicit empirical and normative expectations about behavior in the PDG with a recommendation to study the role of norms in following it. While men and women are expected to hold similar normative beliefs, men are expected to follow the recommendation less often, suggesting that compliance is a female social norm. |
| Keywords: | gender; compliance; public good; social dilemma; risk-taking; social norms; |
| JEL: | J16 I12 D81 H41 |
| Date: | 2024–12–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:519 |
| By: | Sabrina Di Addario; Michela Giorcelli; Agata Maida |
| Abstract: | The share of female inventors remains significantly lower than that of men in both developed and developing countries. This paper studies gender bias in patenting activity, using a unique dataset that matches Italian administrative employer-employee records both to patent data from the European Patent Office (1987-2005) and to municipality-level information on medieval guilds from the Italian Central Archive of State. We empirically verify whether women's low propensity to patent can be explained by the historical local conception of women's role in society, which we measure with the share of women in guild founders from the Middle Ages. The results indicate that the presence of women in Medieval guilds is associated with a higher probability of observing a female inventor and a higher number of yearly patent submissions by women. |
| Keywords: | patents, women, inventors, guilds |
| JEL: | J60 |
| Date: | 2024–12–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:500 |
| By: | Camilo Garcia-Jimeno; Sahar Parsa |
| Abstract: | Through their writing, people often reflect their values. Since the 1970s, academic economists have gradually changed their third-person pronoun choices, from using the masculine form to incorporating feminine and plural forms. We document this transition empirically, and examine the role of social interactions among economists in driving the cultural change reflected in these choices. Our analysis relies on a model where writing style depends on the influence of academic peers, the implicit negotiation between co-authors, and individual authors’ preferences for expressing gender equality values in their writing. We directly measure peer influence relying on time-varying academic connections between economists, and propose a methodology that uses a homophily-based model of co-authoring decisions to isolate the effect of peer influence from unobserved personal preferences. The model allows us to decompose the observed changes in writing style over the last 50 years into generational shifts, the increasing prevalence of co-authorship in the profession, the increasing share of female economists, and peer influence. Generational changes and the growing share of women in the profession play a minor role. Early on, contrarian economists accelerated the pace of change in writing styles by moving away from their peers’ behavior. The large fraction of conformists and the overall homophily in co-authoring, in contrast, slowed the adoption of innovative writing styles by restricting economists’ exposure to peers with different gender-attitude signaling preferences. |
| Keywords: | Gender; Social norms; Social networks |
| JEL: | D71 D83 D85 J16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2024–11–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:99311 |
| By: | Muhammad Azeem Qureshi (OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University); Ammar Ali Gull (PULV - Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci); Tanveer Ahsan (ESC [Rennes] - ESC Rennes School of Business) |
| Abstract: | The ethical role of women directors is the source of increasing scholarly interest. This study investigates the impact of women directors on corporate misconduct using a dataset of U.S. firms listed between 2002 and 2019. It reveals a significantly negative association between women board directors and corporate misconduct. This association is robust to alternate proxies and regression techniques accounting for potential endogeneity. This study finds that an increase in the proportion of women directors by one standard deviation decreases corporate penalties amount by approximately 1.911%. It also notes that the impact of women directors on corporate misconduct is significant when the board has at least three women and is mainly influenced by independent, rather than executive, women directors. Moreover, the relationship between women directors and corporate misconduct is driven by governance quality, external monitoring, and industry nature. Overall, the investigation indicates that the presence of women directors provides ‘sentry eyes' to corporate boards and reduces corporate misconduct. These findings contribute to the continuing debate on the role of women directors and board diversity and have implications for devising effective corporate governance mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | Corporate penalties, Women directors, Upper-echelon theory, Critical mass theory |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04844672 |
| By: | Ana Rodríguez-González (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Men’s historical advantage in educational attainment has recently been reversed in many countries. I study the implications for family formation of the new female advantage in education in the marriage market, exploiting a Finnish school reform that increased women’s relative level of education. I analyze the reduced-form relationship between marriage market exposure to the reform and family outcomes. I find decreases in marriage and fertility in marriage markets with a larger female educational advantage. These results are mostly driven by the increasing mismatch between the educational distributions of men and women, and might have negative consequences for low-educated men’s mental health. |
| Keywords: | JEL classification: J12, J13, J16, I10 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:202407 |