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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Women Managers And The Gender-Based Gap In Access To Education: Evidence From Firm-Level Data In Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam
Women Managers And The Gender-Based Gap In Access To Education: Evidence From Firm-Level Data In Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam
Mohammad Amin
A number of studies explore the differences in men and women’s labor market participation rates and wages. Some of these differences have been linked to gender disparities in education attainment and access. The present paper contributes to this literature by analyzing the relationship between the proclivity of a firm having a top woman manager and access to education among women relative to men in the country. We combine the literature on women’s careers in management, which has mostly focused on developed countries, with the development literature that has emphasized the importance of access to education. Using firm-level data for 73 …
Do Retail Firms Favor Female Managers? Evidence From Survey Data In Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam
Do Retail Firms Favor Female Managers? Evidence From Survey Data In Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam
Mohammad Amin
Using firm-level data for 87 developing countries, the paper analyzes how the likelihood of a firm having female vs. male top manager varies across sectors. The service sector is often considered to be more favorable towards women compared with men vis-à-vis the manufacturing sector. While our results confirm a significantly higher presence of female managers in services vs. manufacturing, the result is entirely driven by the retail firms with little contribution from other service sectors such as wholesale, construction and other services. We also find that the higher presence of female managers in the retail sector vs. manufacturing is much …
Not-So-Strong Evidence For Gender Differences In Risk, Julie Nelson
Not-So-Strong Evidence For Gender Differences In Risk, Julie Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
In their article "Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Risk Taking," Gary Charness and Uri Gneezy (2012) review a number of experimental studies regarding investments in risky assets, and claim that these yield strong evidence that females are more risk averse than males. This study replicates and extends their article, demonstrating that its methods are highly problematic. While the methods used would be appropriate for categorical, individual-‐level differences, the data reviewed are not consistent with such a model. Instead, modest differences (at most) exist only at aggregate levels, such as group means. The evidence in favor of gender difference is …
Fearing Fear: Gender And Economic Discourse, Julie Nelson
Fearing Fear: Gender And Economic Discourse, Julie Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Economic discourse—or the lack of it—about fear is gendered on at least three fronts. First, while masculine-‐associated notions of reason and mind have historically been prioritized in mainstream economics, fear—along with other emotions and embodiment—has tended to be culturally associated with femininity. Research on cognitive "gender schema," then, may at least partly explain the near absence of discussions of fear within economic research. Second, in the rare cases where fear is discussed in the contemporary economics literature, there is a tendency to (overly-‐)strongly associate it with women. Finally, historians and philosophers of science have suggested that the failure to consider …
The Power Of Stereotyping And Confirmation Bias To Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case Of Economics, Gender, And Risk Aversion, Julie A. Nelson
The Power Of Stereotyping And Confirmation Bias To Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case Of Economics, Gender, And Risk Aversion, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Behavioral research has revealed how normal human cognitive processes can tend to lead us astray. But do these affect economic researchers, ourselves? This article explores the consequences of stereotyping and confirmation bias using a sample of published articles from the economics literature on gender and risk aversion. The results demonstrate that the supposedly “robust” claim that “women are more risk averse than men” is far less empirically supported than has been claimed. The questions of how these cognitive biases arise and why they have such power are discussed, and methodological practices that may help to attenuate these biases are outlined.
Is Dismissing The Precautionary Principle The Manly Thing To Do? Gender And The Economics Of Climate Change, Julie Nelson
Is Dismissing The Precautionary Principle The Manly Thing To Do? Gender And The Economics Of Climate Change, Julie Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Many public debates about climate change now focus on the economic "costs" of taking action. When called on to advise about these, many leading mainstream economists downplay the need for care and caution on climate issues, forecasting a future with infinitely continued economic growth. This essay highlights the roles of binary metaphors and cultural archetypes in creating the highly gendered, sexist, and age-ist attitudes that underlie this dominant advice. Gung-ho economic growth advocates aspire to the role of The Hero, rejecting the conservatism of The Old Wife. But in a world that is not actually as safe and predictable as …
Teaching Ecological And Feminist Economics In The Principles Course, Julie A. Nelson
Teaching Ecological And Feminist Economics In The Principles Course, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
It can be difficult to incorporate ecological and feminist concerns into introductory courses, when one is also obliged to teach neoclassical analysis. In this essay we briefly describe how one might extend existing “multi-paradigmatic” approaches to feminist and ecological concerns, and then present an new alternative approach that may be more suitable for some students. This “broader questions and bigger toolbox” approach can be applied in both microeconomics and macroeconomics introductory classrooms.