Women and Public Policy Program Seminar Series

Sexual Assault on College Campuses: A Behavioral Approach with Betsy Paluck and Ana Gantman

Dr. Betsy Paluck and Dr. Ana Gantman present a behavioral perspective on campus sexual assault. Prominent models of sexual assault portray assault perpetrators as one of two extremes. In the clinical model, perpetrators are seen as unchangeable deviants. In the cultural model, perpetrators are a product of rape culture. The behavioral perspective analyzes how individual psychological phenomena and environmental configurations interact, and drive patterns of sexual assault. For example, the behavioral approach enables researchers to analyze how different contexts activate perceived norms, goals, and moral language, which shifts the likelihood of assault. Based on this theoretical framework, Dr. Paluck and Dr. Gantman field-tested an intervention in Princeton University eating club parties. A student-driven initiative requiring party-goers to read aloud a definition of consent at the door was tested by varying the framing of the consent language and the identity of the person presenting the consent language. In this seminar, Dr. Paluck and Dr. Gantman present results and discuss lessons for the design, implementation, and research on the effects of university policy on sexual assault.

Betsy Paluck, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs, Princeton University

Ana Gantman, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs, Princeton University

Can Female Role Models Reduce the Gender Gap in Science? Evidence from Classroom Interventions in French High Schools with Clémentine Van Effenterre

In this seminar, Clémentine Van Effenterre assesses whether a short in-class intervention by an external female role model can influence students' attitudes towards science and contribute to a significant change in their choice of field of study. The intervention consists of a one hour, one off visit to a high school classroom by a volunteer female scientist. It is targeted to change students’ perceptions and attitudes towards scientific careers and the role of women in science, with the aim of ultimately reducing the gender gap in scientific studies. Using a random assignment of the interventions to 10th and 12th grade classrooms during normal teaching hours, Clémentine finds that exposure to female role models significantly reduces the prevalence of stereotypes associated with jobs in science, for both female and male students. While Clémentine finds no significant effect of the classroom interventions on 10th grade students’ choice of high school track the following year, her results show a positive and significant impact of the intervention on the probability of applying and of being admitted to a selective science major in college among 12th grade students. This effect is essentially driven by high-achieving students and is larger for girls in relative terms. After the intervention, their probability to be enrolled in selective science programs after graduating from high school increases by 30 percent with respect to the baseline mean.

Clémentine Van Effenterre, WAPPP Postdoctoral Fellow

Women in Combat: Does Integration Lead to Equality? with Megan Mackenzie

Megan MacKenzie's presentation explores the history of the combat exclusion and the recent integration of women into combat roles. It introduces the equal/different double bind as a framework for understanding the impossible expectations often put on women in male dominated fields. Women are expected to be equal and integrate fully into the work culture; yet they are also expected to ‘add value’ and transform institutions. Does this equal/different double bind set women up for failure? Her presentation explores this question through an analysis of women in combat.

Megan MacKenzie, Associate Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney

Equal but Inequitable: Who Benefits from Gender-Neutral Tenure Clock Stopping Policies with Kelly Bedard

Having children may reduce the probability that women are promoted in a variety of professions because early productivity falls despite the existence of short family leave programs. But the problem may be particularly acute at research intensive universities where research productivity before the tenure decision is especially important. In repsonse, many of the institutions have adopted gender-neutral tenure clock-stopping policies so women-and men-do not have to sacrifice family for career, and vice-versa. The extra time on the tenure clock is inteneded to account for the negative productivity shock associated with having a child. While these policies are equal in the sense that they give the same benfit to women and men who have children, they are inequitable in that the time cost (or productivity loss) experienced by men and women is quite different. Using data from top 50 economic departments from 1980-2005, Kelly Bedard shows that these policies raise male tenure rates while at the same time reducing female tenure rates. 

 

Kelly Bedard, Department Chair and Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara

Betting the House: How Assets Influence Marriage Selection, Marriage Stability, and Child Investments with Corinne Low

In the past 50 years, marital rates have declined significantly, especially among lower socioeconomic groups. Meanwhile increase in the ease of divorce and improvements in contracting outside of marriage (e.g.,child support laws) have made marriage increasingly similar to cohabitation, except for in the treatment of assets upon divorce. Corinne Low, together with coauthor Jeanne Lafortune, present a case that as the commitment offered by marriage declined, this division of assets offered extra "insurance" to women in high asset unions. This in turn encouraged investment in child human capital, even at the cost of one's own earnings, and allowed marriage to retain its value amongst asset holders particularly homeowners. Meanwhile, the value of marriage eroded for other groups, creating a wealth gap in marriage rates that may underly the apparent income, race, and education gap. 

 

Corinne Low, Assistant Professor of Business Economics and Public Poliy, The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania.

Gender Differences in Self and Other-Competition with Johanna Mollerstrom

Using lab and online experiments with more than 2000 participants this work documents that women are less prone than men to compete against others, but equally willing to challenge themselves to improve and compete with their own past performance. The authors further explore the roles of risk attitudes and confidence and suggest that these factors can account for why there is a gender difference in the willingness to enter other-competitions, but not self-competitions. The effects are driven observability by single male peers.

 

Johanna Mollerstrom, Professor of Economics, Humboldt University, Department Head, "Competition and Consumers", DIW Berlin

New Ways of Thinking About Gender and Leadership Effectiveness with Aparna Joshi

The challenges and barriers that women face in both entering into and performing effectively in leadership roles have been widely documented across many research domains.  In this seminar Aparna Joshi takes a look at this issue from the perspective of both women and men in leadership roles. First, she unpacks conditions under which women leaders can be effective change agents in highly male-dominated settings. Based on a sixteen- year longitudinal data set of women legislators in the US Congress she examines how the content of bills can prime the legitimacy of women in leader roles and predict their success in passing bills over the course of their tenures.  Second, shifting the focus on men in leadership roles, she also problematizes the “think manager think male” paradigm that has been applied extensively to understand barriers faced by women, from the perspective of men. Based on a sample of Fortune 500 male CEOs she examines the consequences for firm performance and CEO pay among men who subscribe (or not) to masculine stereotypes.  Through these two studies she aims at highlighting new ways of thinking about gender and leadership effectiveness.

 

Aparna Joshi, Arnold Family Professor of Management, Smeal College of Management, Penn State University 

Intimate Violence and Sexual Violence in Chinese Societies with Jia Xue

In this seminar, Jia Xue discusses the current state of domestic violence law in China. In particular, she focuses on how this social issue transfers into a policy agenda. Jia draws on findings from her current project, which examines the use of social media in the context of intimate partner violence in China. Additionally, she introduces another project investigating the impact of intimate partner violence on mental health through the examination of Weibo messages (Chinese version of Twitter).

 

Jia Xue, Ph.D. Candidate in Social Welfare, University of Pennsylvania. Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights

Gender and Security Seminar Series: Does Integration Change Gender Attitudes? The Effect of Randomly Assigning Women to Traditionally Male Teams with Dr. Andreas Kotsadam

Join us for the first installment of the Gender and Security Seminar Series. In this seminar, Andreas Kotsadam examines whether the exposure of men to women in a traditionally male-dominated environment can change gendered attitudes. The context is the military in Norway, where female recruits were randomly assigned to some squads but not others during boot camp. Findings show that living and working with women for 8 weeks caused men to adopt more egalitarian attitudes. Specifically, there was a 14 percentage point increase in the fraction of men who think mixed-gender teams perform as well or better than same-gender teams, an 8 percentage point increase in men who think household work should be shared equally and a 14 percentage point reduction in men who strongly disavow feminine traits. Contrary to what many policymakers have predicted, there is no evidence that integrating women into squads hurt male recruits' satisfaction with boot camp or their plans to continue in the military. These findings demonstrate that even in a highly gender-skewed environment, gender stereotypes are malleable and can be altered by integrating members of the opposite sex.

 

Andreas Kotsadam, Senior Researcher, The Frisch Centre; Affiliated Researcher, Department of Economics, University of Oslo

Discussing Diversity: How Emphasizing and Minimizing Intergroup Differences Affect Bias and Empowerment with Ashley Martin

In this seminar, Ashley Martin discusses the consequences of being “aware of” or “blind to” intergroup differences on women’s workplace outcomes. In contrast to organizational best-practices for race relations, which argue that recognizing racial differences is more effective at reducing racial bias than is ignoring them, she shows that deemphasizing, rather than embracing, gender differences promotes men’s inclusion and women’s empowerment.

Ashley Martin, PhD Candidate, Columbia Business School