Women and Public Policy Program Seminar Series

Jobs and Kids: Female Employment and Fertility in China with Karen Eggleston

Data on 2,355 married women from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey are used to study how female employment affects fertility in China. China has deep concerns with both population size and female employment, so the relationship between the two should be better understood. Causality flows in both directions. A conceptual model shows how employment prospects affect fertility. Then an instrumental variable isolates this effects. Female employment reduces a married woman's preferred number of children by 0.35 on average and her actual number by 0.50. Ramifications for China's one-child policy are discussed. Speaker: Karen Eggleston, Director, Asia Health Policy Program, Stanford University

Thriving Despite Negative Stereotypes in STEM with Nilanjana Dasgupta

Dasgupta’s research focuses on implicit bias and the self-concept, with special emphasis on ways in which societal expectations subtly shape individuals’ attitudes and behavior toward others and, in some cases, influence their own self-concept and life decisions. In her talk, she will highlight the impact of implicit stereotypes on individuals’ own academic and professional choices. She demonstrates that these choices are constrained by subtle expectations that signal who “naturally” belongs in a profession or academic field and is likely to succeed, and who seems like an unlikely fit. Dasgupta then asks the question -- what factors release these constraints and enhance individuals’ real freedom to pursue any academic and professional path purely based on ability not stereotypes? She addresses this question in two achievement domains: women and girls’ aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and women’s leadership aspirations in professions that are disproportionately male. Speaker: Nilanjana Dasgupta, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Black Women Mobilizing: Intersectionality in Urban Land Rights Struggles in Brazil with Keisha-Khan Perry

In Brazil and throughout the African diaspora rarely are black women, especially poor black women, considered leaders of social movements, much less political theorists. While black women are at the heart of the struggle for urban housing and land rights in Salvador, they are virtually ignored. The public image of black women, particularly those who live in poor neighborhoods, is that they lack the knowledge and political sophistication needed to organize social movements. This presentation explores how and why black women are the main ones interpreting the racial, gender, and class dynamics of urban-development policies and have radicalized local communities. Perry argues that Black women who organize as blacks, women, and poor people provide key insights on precisely how intersectionality is mobilized for social change. This talk bridges the scholarly gap between the black feminist theorization and the grassroots practice of intersectionality. Speaker: Keisha-Khan Perry, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, Brown University

The Politics of Work-Family Policies in France, Germany and Japan with Patricia Boling

Low fertility countries in Europe and Asia have adopted new work-family reconciliation policies, with varied results.  Boling analyzes the politics of work-family reconciliation policies in three conservative welfare states, arguing that in this policy area, politics gets in the way of policy learning, making it difficult to borrow the “best practices” of other countries.  The reasons for this differ, but relate to policy histories and repertoires, political institutions, labor markets that exact high opportunity costs from mothers who spend time at home with children, and cultural expectations about good mothering. Speaker: Patricia Boling, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Purdue University

The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation and Institutions with Tali Mendelberg

Many public settings involve discussions – committees, town meetings, conflict resolution groups, hearings, voluntary associations (clubs, residential associations, churches), etc. Do women exercise their voices to the same extent, and as influentially, as men do? Do women succeed as well as men at speaking, mentioning the topics of distinctive concern to their gender, articulating their own pre-discussion preferences, affecting the group decision, and gaining influence in the eyes of others? Our answer is no. We find a pervasive gender gap in women’s substantive and symbolic representation. But this gender gap shrinks and even closes entirely under the right institutional designs. Speaker: Tali Mendelberg, Professor, Department of Politics, Princeton University

Diversity on a Deadline: How we created everyone’s 2012 with Stephen Frost

The Olympic and Paralympic Games represent a once in a lifetime opportunity to achieve paradigm change in policymaking.  As Head of Diversity and Inclusion for the London Organizing Committee 2007-2012, Stephen worked with the CEO, HR Director and other directors and colleagues to achieve systemic change in recruitment, procurement and customer service delivery mechanisms.  Using a range of incentives, London managed to achieve unprecedented diversity in the workforce through demand and supply interventions in recruitment, as well as significant strides in supplier diversity through an assertive procurement program.  Stephen will talk through some of the methods they used to achieve this result, hailed by the International Paralympic Committee as the “Best Games ever”. Speaker: Stephen Frost, Head of Diversity and Inclusion, London Olympics Committee

Can Female Leaders Mitigate Negative Effects of Diversity? The Case of National Leaders with Katherine Phillips

Ethnic diversity can have negative effects, increasing the potential for perceived inequities, negative conflict, and communication difficulties in groups and organizations that can lead to negative performance outcomes. Consistent with these findings, political economists have also shown that ethnic fractionalization, essentially a measure of country-level diversity, undermines GDP growth of a country. At this tealk, we use a multi-methods research approach to examine the perceived and actual influence of male and female national leaders in countries characterized by more or less ethnic fractionalization. We will examine people’s perceptions of male and female country leaders and how well they might fit as leaders of ethnically fractionalized countries. While causation is not possible to prove, the results suggest countries that have high ethnic fractionalization and difficulty to lead scores stand to uniquely benefit from female leadership. Implications for understanding the intersection of gender and ethnic diversity in complex environments are discussed. Speaker: Katherine Phillips, Professor of Management, Columbia Business School

Justifying and Rationalizing Questionable Behavior with Michael Norton

How do people justify their regrettable behavior to themselves – such as discriminating against others on the basis of gender and race? We suggest that a common strategy used to avoid the appearance of bias when making such decisions is to cloak decision-making in more acceptable terms: when people make decisions based on questionable criteria – such as gender – they scan the environment for other less controversial attributes that can be recruited to justify their decisions. We demonstrate this general process in domains ranging from racism in the legal system (Blacks being disproportionately excluded from juries in trials with Black defendants) to gender discrimination (women being passed over for traditionally “male” jobs), showing that in each case, decision-makers are careful to find other mundane attributes to mask the true reasons underlying their biased decision making.