Gender bias and women’s political performance

We model voters’ gender bias as a prejudice on women’s competence coming from a distorted prior. We analyse the effect of this bias in a two-period two-party election model in which voters care about both policy preference and competence. We find that, if voters (wrongly) believe that women are drawn from a distribution of competences with higher weights on lower values, female politicians are less likely to win office but, when elected, they are on average more competent than male elected officials. As a consequence, female incumbents seek re-election more often.     

Breaking through the glass ceiling. Simulating policies to close the gender gap in the Italian academia

As gender discrimination in academia is still far from being resolved, the recent debate focuses on the policies that can be adopted to increase gender balance in university systems. We construct a virtual academia—scaling down Italian academia in 2019—and simulate the evolution of its gender composition using an agent-based model that considers the complex nature of gender discrimination. Our findings show that, despite the rhetoric of meritocracy, a one-hundred-year period would not be enough to close the gender gap, even assuming that female researchers have the same scientific productivity as their male colleagues. To achieve more gender equality, universities should implement a set of policies that includes maternity bonuses in the evaluation of the CVs of female candidates for promotion, rules for a more gender balanced composition of the committees evaluating candidates for promotion, and gender quotas in promotions to full professorships. The gender gap in the Italian academia will close only when all these policies are introduced simultaneously.     

Board gender composition and waste management: Cross-country evidence

Extant literature on board gender diversity focuses on the main pillars of sustainability while ignoring the important subdimension – waste management. Using a sample of 8365 firm-year observations for the period 2002–2017 from 37 countries, we provide novel empirical evidence that board gender diversity significantly reduces (increases) waste generation (waste recycling) in firms. We also note that the impact is significant with two or more female directors and is primarily driven by female directors’ independence. Moreover, the relationship is moderated by the masculinity dimension of national culture and sustainable compensation policies. Our analysis also shows that waste management activities of gender-diverse boards accompany the better financial performance. Our findings are robust to several identification strategies and estimation techniques. Our study provides new insights into the governance–sustainability nexus and presents important policy implications for regulators across countries.     

Gender peer effects on students’ educational and occupational expectations

To date, little is known about how gender peers affect students’ educational and occupational expectations. This study investigates the gender peer effects on students’ educational and occupational expectations, using the 2014 China Education Panel Survey. To address students’ self-selection into classes, we choose a sample of schools that randomly assign students to classes. We find that exposure to more female peers increases students’ probability of expecting to attend university and reduces their probability of expecting to complete only middle school. Besides, exposure to more female peers increases boys’ and girls’ probabilities of expecting to pursue a career as a manager, and reduces their probabilities of expecting to become a teacher, doctor, or lawyer. Moreover, exposure to more female peers has significant positive effects on both girls’ and boys’ probability of expecting to pursue prevalently male occupations. In addition, we discuss the mechanisms and check the robustness of the results. This study helps to understand the gender peer effects in education and the variations in individuals’ educational and occupational choices.     

Expatriates on the run: The psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on expatriates’ host country withdrawal intentions

Extant research on expatriation in high-stress environments where stress is caused by ongoing and unexpected natural crises remains limited. Drawing on stress theory, in this study, we develop a model to examine the stress-inducing effects of intra-family concerns and workplace discrimination on the intentions to leave the host country among expatriates in the high-stress environment of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We also explore whether gender and the level of work adjustment moderate the propensity of intra-family health concerns and workplace discrimination to induce psychological stress. Based on our analysis of 381 expatriates living and working in the United Arab Emirates, we find the model to be generally supported. We also reveal an intriguing moderating effect of work adjustment on the relationship between intra-family health concerns and psychological stress. Overall, the analysis is among the first ones to shed light on the role of natural crises’ stressors in defining expatriate outcomes.     

中国研发人员性别结构分布演变、关联影响与差异来源——基于半参数核回归与Oaxaca分解的研究

激发女性研发人员创造活力，对于中国创新经济发展具有重要意义。然而，科研领域性别结构失衡是长期以来科学共同体内外所面临的问题。基于2010-2019年中国内地30个省份面板数据，围绕企业、研发机构、高校等创新主体，在对创新全要素生产率指数（以下简称创新TFP）进行测度的基础上，运用核密度估计对三大创新主体的性别结构、创新TFP分布的演进进行描绘。其次，采用半参数核回归法探析科研人员性别结构与创新投入、产出和创新TFP间的关联。最后，选用Oaxaca分解法探究STEM研究生性别差异对R&D人员性别差异的解释程度。结果表明：相比研发机构和高校，企业研发人员性别失衡更为严重，相比人口大省、经济发展落后地区，发达地区对研发人员性别结构的“兜底作用”更显著；创新投入、产出与性别结构之间存在非对称关系，在研发人员女性占比越高的地区，区域全要素生产率指数越高；STEM领域研究生数量上的性别差异可以解释约6成的研发人员性别差异，且解释程度呈逐渐增提升势。     

Assortative matching and commercial insurance participation: Evidence from the China Household Finance Survey

We investigated three assortative matching forms, positive assortative matching, women marrying up and men marrying up, and their effects on household commercial insurance participation, the number of family members with commercial insurance and household premium expenditures. Men marrying up has a significantly positive effect on the possibility of household commercial insurance participation and the number of family members having commercial insurance. The effect of men marrying up is larger in health insurance than in life insurance and annuity due to the salience of health risks. Finally, men marrying up interacts with the gender and risk attitude of the household financial decision-maker and may jointly affect household commercial insurance participation. Female decision-makers in marriages are more likely to purchase commercial insurance.     

What if the supervisor has a different gender? The roles of value fit,identification, and beliefs in gender equality

In the past decades, the number of female employees and managers has strongly increased in most developed countries. This demographic development emphasizes the importance to investigate gender dissimilarity between employees and their supervisor and how it can be managed to elicit beneficial gender dissimilarity effects on employees’ attitudes and interpersonal interactions. Past gender dissimilarity research often assumes women and men to have different values. Due to these value differences, women and men should be less satisfied with a supervisor who has a different gender. However, past research reported inconsistent gender dissimilarity effects on employees’ satisfaction and other work-related satisfaction variables. To clarify gender dissimilarity effects on employees’ satisfaction with their supervisor, we analyze the moderating role of an employee’s beliefs in gender equality. We further draw on social identity theory and investigate value fit with the supervisor and identification with the supervisor as underlying mechanisms of gender dissimilarity effects. To test our research model, we conducted a three-wave survey study with 463 employees. Value fit and identification with the supervisor mediated the relationship between gender dissimilarity and employees’ satisfaction with supervisor. This indirect relationship was only significant for employees with low beliefs in gender equality. This means high beliefs in gender equality can offset dysfunctional gender dissimilarity effects.     

Do men and women discriminate against women for the same reason? Evidence from China

In this study, we examine whether men and women form gender discrimination for the same reason. To do that, we build an experimental Chinese labor market in which employers evaluate the productivity of workers who perform a real-effort task. Before evaluation, the employer observes the worker’s personal and group information. The personal information contains gender identity and a signal of productivity. The group information reveals the productivity distributions of some other male and female workers who do not differ in average productivity. However, it shows more male workers at the very top productivity levels and more female workers at the very bottom productivity levels in one treatment than in the other. According to the belief-based theory, there will be a greater degree of discrimination against female workers in the former. We find that, however, only male employers’ evaluations are well predicted by this approach. Female employers behave oppositely: their degree of gender discrimination is smaller in the treatment emphasizing men’s advantage in the tails of the productivity distributions. To explain female employers’ evaluations, we adopt the preference-based approach. Our findings suggest that employers of different genders can have different motivations for gender discrimination, and thus call attention to the theoretical foundation of gender discrimination and policy measures aimed at reducing gender discrimination.