Tag Archives: gender issues

04.08.2013 | Sheryl Sandberg’s Three-Point Plan

By Lilli DeBode, guest blogger, senior at Kent Place School

Almost a month ago, COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, released her book “Lean in—Women, Work, and the will to lead.” In the past few weeks the author has received a lot of criticism; some say her book encourages women to change as opposed to encouraging society as a whole to change. Others say that her book only applies to a small group of elite women and her suggestions are simply unrealistic for the typical American woman. I say yes, her suggestions do focus on a very specific demographic of women, but they are extremely noteworthy and should be taken seriously.

In 2010 Sandberg gave a famous TED Talk on the [lack of] progress of women in the workforce. This video has been watched over two million times, and in just 15 minutes provides her female viewers with her three simple suggestions on how to achieve success in the workplace.

Her first point: “Sit at the Table.” Sandberg says that women systematically underestimate themselves while men often overestimate themselves. This is one of the key reasons there aren’t as many women as men in top corporate positions. When women are successful they attribute it to help from others, luck, or hard work. In addition, Sandberg brings up a study showing the salaries of Carnegie Mellon MBA graduates. In the study, women’s starting salaries were almost $4,000 less than those of their male peers. Why is this? Because only 7% of the women negotiated their salaries while 57% of the men asked for more money. Sandberg sums it up perfectly: “No one gets the promotion they don’t think they deserve.”

Her second point is very simple: “Make your partner a real partner.” In order for women to be successful in the workplace they need their partners to help out at home. Right now, full-time working women do twice as much housework and three times as much childcare as their male partners do. The ratio needs to be 50:50 if women are to have a shot at those promotions.

Finally her last point: “Don’t leave before you leave.” After interacting with many young women, Sandberg recognized a trend that is causing them to lower their aspirations. She found that long before they even have husbands, many young women start to minimize their career ambitions in preparation for the day that they have to leave to workforce to take care of their children. As a result, women pass up exciting career opportunities, thus making the idea of returning to work once they actually have children less appealing. In order to combat this premature settling, Sandberg urges young women to “Keep your foot on the gas pedal until the very day you need to leave.”

Sources and Resources: Watch Sandberg’s TED talk here. To learn more about her lecture, read this article from The Atlantic. To learn more about the Carnegie Mellon study she sited, click here.

Posted by: adminEcon
Tags: career women, gender inequality, gender issues, Sheryl Sandberg, TED talks, working women
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03.04.2013 | Gender Issues: Men and Women aren’t that Different

By Lilli DeBode, guest blogger, senior at Kent Place School

Are men and women genetically different when it comes to behavior? Is it in women’s DNA to be less aggressive than men? I know I certainly thought so; it seems that since the beginning of the human race women have always been the less forceful of the two sexes. There had to be reasoning for this constant behavioral difference between women and men throughout the past few thousand years, and DNA sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation.

However, this is not the case. Uri Gneezy, Kenneth L. Leonard, and John A. List did a study that revolutionizes everything we ever held true about behavioral gender stereotypes. Apparently, when it comes to behavior, it really is nurture as opposed to nature.

The group did a study on competition in two different cultures: an extremely patriarchal Masai tribe in Tanzania, and one of the few matrilineal societies in the world, the Khasi tribe, located in India.

The test was simple. There were two buckets placed on different sides of a building. Two test subjects each had ten balls and had to throw as many as they could into their bucket. Here’s the catch: the subjects had the choice between winning a dollar for each ball they get in, or competing and getting three dollars for each point only if they beat their opponent on the other side of the building.

The outcome was surprising. In the Masai tribe, 50% of the men chose to compete whereas only 26% of the women chose the more risky option. These results were expected and probably mirror what the outcome would be if the test was done basically much anywhere else. The moment of truth came when the Khasi experiment ended. The results were pretty crazy. In the Khasi tribe, 54% of women chose to compete while only 39% of men chose the competitive incentive scheme.

Not only were the Khasi women more competitive than the Khasi men; they were more competitive than the Masai men!

This incredibly simple experiment should make us really sit down and question main factors in our societies. It is so commonly accepted that men and women are behaviorally different, but why is that? Apparently we aren’t all that different; we have just been declaring ourselves genetically dissimilar while we really have just been imitating our predecessors because it’s all we know. Granted, there certainly are genetic behavioral differences between men and women, but this study has proven that nurture plays a much larger role than nature in this circumstance.

Women aren’t inherently less competitive or aggressive than men; the majority of women just happen to grow up in societies where disparity is accepted as unchangeable fact. The real question is, though: is it really that bad that the majority of women aren’t competitive? Is the more admirable trait the ability risk it all, or is it the ability to hold back and go with the more certain option. Should we be teaching girls to risk more, or should we be teaching boys to play it safer?

Sources and Resources: To learn more about this specific study on the gender gap, listen to this Freakonomics podcast. For more debate about whether aggression is genetic or not, read this article. For a more scientific outlook on the debate read this paper.

Posted by: adminEcon
Tags: behavioral differences, competitive women, gender issues, Khusi tribe, Masai tribe, nature vs. nurture
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01.28.2013 | Gender Issues: Japan’s Shrinking Population Caused by Women’s Success?

By Lilli DeBode, guest blogger, senior at Kent Place School

Japan is facing a serious problem that many countries wish they had: a decreasing population. The population declined by 212,000 people in 2012, and the current fertility rate, (which is at 1.39 per woman) is continuing to drop each year. It has been predicted that by 2060, people aged 65 and older will make up 40% of the entire population. The reason? Japan’s younger generations are not really keen on the idea of relationships— specifically, intimate ones.

It may have started with the influx of “herbivore men” into the population. Herbivore men are men typically 20-30 years old who are not interested in having girlfriends or fitting into the masculine stereotypes. The sudden disappearance of the manly man, the kind of men women typically prefer in Japan, is a large component as to why women have stopped wanting to have children. In a CNN article, a journalist interviewed a woman in Japan who said, “We like manly men. We are not interested in those boys — at all.” Another woman pronounced, “Herbivorous boys are fragile, do not have a stocky body — skinny.”

Another factor of the dropping population is the new economic freedom of women. Especially since a majority of men have lost their utility for their female partners, women are free to pursue other aspects of their lives. Having success in the workplace has taken precedence over settling down and having children. For many women, the world of dating and relationships has been virtually eliminated, leaving more time to climb the corporate ladder and thus, earn more. With their ample amount of money, Japanese women can now be completely self-sufficient, a luxury many women cannot afford in the rest of the world. Japanese women can pay for their nice apartments, all of their necessities, and still have money left over for shopping. With all of their economic success, these women find the thought of giving up their jobs and economic freedom to marry a man undesirable. Consequently, Japan’s population is about 16.5 million, but is dropping by one every 100 seconds.

What does this mean overall? In many first world countries, women still find themselves stuck at home raising kids when they want to be out in the workforce, pursuing their passions. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, women are only working, and thus putting their population at risk of extinction.

So does this all mean that women should be forced into economic dependence on men just so that the human population doesn’t plummet into oblivion?

Of course not.

We are not going to struggle eternally with this tug-of-war between women’s economic freedom and healthy population growth. Some countries such as Iceland and Sweden have already found happy mediums; creating friendly environments for working mothers.

Nevertheless, the situation in Japan is certainly an interesting one to ponder since it is so incredibly unique. Will Japanese women sacrifice their cherished lifestyles to save their nation? According to research, we may find out in just several decades.

Sources and Resources: This article by CNN gives more in depth statistics about Japan’s decreasing population. ABC News’ article also provides additional information about the alarming birthrate. This op-ed in The Japan Times gives a very interesting look into the minds of the younger Japanese generation, and specifically, why they are so reluctant to get married and reproduce.

Posted by: adminEcon
Tags: decreasing population, gender issues, herbivore men, Japan, women's economic freedom
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01.21.2013 | Gender Issues: The Second Glass Ceiling

By Lilli DeBode, guest blogger, senior at Kent Place School

A recent study shows that the glass ceiling not only pertains to employment, but also to marriage. The results demonstrate that as women earn more than their husbands, the frequency of those marriages decreases. In other words, there are tons of couples in which the man makes a greater or equal amount of money than the woman, but there are many fewer couples as income reverses. (It should also be pointed out that all of these couples were in the age range of 22-34 years old, so the presence of children could not really skew the numbers). The study also makes the equally upsetting point that as women start to out-earn their husbands, the rate of divorce increases. Interestingly enough, it did not make a difference how much the disparity between the two paychecks was. Just in general, if women earned more, the occurrence of divorce increased.

The results also show that a woman who has the potential to out-earn her husband often either decides to work less or quit her job altogether. Why is this? It could be because she realizes how detrimental (and possibly terminal) it could be for her relationship. Another explanation proposed by the study was that in marriages in which the woman makes the smaller paycheck, the woman is the one who does the majority of the household chores. Therefore, it only makes sense that if the woman is the one who earns more money, then the man should be the one to take care of the chores. Oddly, this is not the case. Just because of social norms, women, even if they work longer hours and earn more money, are still expected to complete the household tasks.

So what does this mean for the economy? A significant proportion of women are not working at full potential, thus under-utilizing our nation’s production possibilities. Especially at a time in which our economy desperately needs a productivity surge, gender norms and stereotypes should not be hindering our economy to this extent.

Sources and Resources: To read more about this issue, New York Magazine has a very interesting article about the troubles which can stem from having a relationship in which the woman is the “alpha.” The Economist also has an article which discusses the issues above in more depth.

Note: The title was slightly edited after this entry was posted.

Posted by: adminEcon
Tags: gender issues, gender wage gap, glass ceiling, production possibilities, working women
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01.07.2013 | Gender Issues: New Hampshire and Natalie Portman

Thinking of the gender pay gap, there might be a connection between New Hampshire politicians and Natalie Portman.

New Hampshire political life is dominated by women. New Hampshire’s 2 Senators, her 2 Congressional representatives, her governor, speaker of the State House and her State Supreme Court chief justice are all women.

It is possible that the 400 seats in New Hampshire’s General Court (state legislature) provided an easy route for entering politics. But also, one journalist hinted that the $100 salary made serving resemble female volunteerism. By contrast, the Pennsylvania state legislature pays $82,026 a year. Were New Hampshire women more willing than New Hampshire men to accept a lower salary?

And that takes me to Natalie Portman. In a Bloomberg radio segment on the movie stars who create the biggest return for their studios based on their salaries, I learned that Natalie Portman leads the Forbes list. For every dollar she earns, on average, her films return $42.70. The Bloomberg report suggested that as a woman, she was paid less. Therefore, a successful movie could be more lucrative for her employers.

Your opinion?

Our bottom line: In the US, on average, female salaries are close to 20% less than men’s. However, it also depends on where you live and your family status. Washington, D.C. has the smallest wage gap while Wyoming has the largest.

Monday Gender Issues Posts

Sources and Resources: Two good articles about New Hampshire politics were at Slate and the NY Times. Meanwhile, it was fun to go through the Forbes slide show on the movie stars who provided the best return. (As for the worst return, Forbes said it was Eddie Murphy.) And, econlife looked at the gender wage gap here and here.

Posted by: adminEcon
Tags: female lawmakers, gender issues, gender pay gap, Natalie Portman, New Hampshire
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