New Research Shows 25 Percent Pay Gap for Women Doctors

New data from the largest analysis to date on physician salaries shows that over the course of a career, female physicians make an average $2 million less than their male counterparts, a 25 percent pay gap. This survey of more than eighty thousand physicians, reported by Azeen Ghorayshi of the New York Times and published in Health Affairs, is the first to estimate the cumulative impact of gender pay gaps in medicine. Survey data was collected between 2014 and 2019. The study’s lead author, Christopher Whaley, a health economist at the nonpartisan think tank RAND Corporation, suggests that the gap may be even wider now given that other studies show the pandemic has driven women in many fields out of the workplace.

The self-reported salary data was collected at the social network Doximity, which is similar to LinkedIn and claims to reach 80 percent of doctors in the United States. The analysis compared wages between women and men with the same amount of experience and controlled for differences in specialty, type of practice, and patient volume. The study did not include data on people who identify as nonbinary or transgender, which are factors known to influence physician pay. Racial disaggregation of the data was also not possible because, as noted by Whaley, salary information for physicians by race “is not systematically recorded really anywhere.”

The study findings, as reported by Ghorayshi, include the following sober statistics:

  • Female doctors make less than their male counterparts starting from their very first days on the job.
  • The salary gaps started at the beginning of doctors’ careers and continued to widen until around their tenth year without recovering. The gap remained stable for the rest of their forty-year careers, with women never catching up to men.
  • When comparing wages between men and women with the same amount of experience, male physicians over a forty-year career earned an average of $8.3 million while women earned roughly $6.3 million—a nearly 25 percent difference.
  • Even within specialties, the wage gaps were sizable. For example, the highest gap was among surgeons at around $2.5 million and lowest among primary care physicians at nearly $920,000.

Ghorayshi notes that other studies have shown widespread bias against women in both academic and applied medicine, as well as in other fields. She writes that while “almost all professions still pay women less . . . the gap is wider among health care practitioners than among people in computer and engineering jobs.”

According to Ghorayshi, “While roughly the same number of women graduate from medical school as men, women make up only 36 percent of working physicians.” Snigdha Jain, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Yale School of Medicine, suggests that one source of the “leaky pipeline” might be that women are in the prime of their reproductive years when they start practice, and they experience “insufficient maternity leave, inadequate support on return to work and a disproportionate burden of child care in the subsequent years.” Per Whaley’s suggestion, “Offering more paid family leave and more flexible scheduling,” along with making salary information more transparent, could help women “earn their fair share.”

All women in all professions would benefit from these policy changes. We need to put pressure on our lawmakers to put these policies in place.

 

Photo courtesy of Army Medicine (CC BY 2.0)

The Impact of Gender Stereotypes in Computer Science and Engineering

I remember when my high school guidance counselor advised me not to enroll in advanced science and math courses. He told me that girls were just not good at math and science and these courses would be a waste of my time. I kid you not, this really happened. And I believed him and did not consider career paths that required college math and science courses. After I graduated from college, I realized, “Wait a minute! I actually am good in math and science.” In fact, I had taken a number of advanced math and science courses in college for pass/fail grades as elective courses that did not count toward any major. I enjoyed them and did well in them. Once I graduated and realized the discrepancies in my beliefs and experiences, it felt too late to choose a different path, such as medical school, which would require me to start over.

Perhaps this is why a new large study on gender stereotypes in computer and engineering caught my attention. This study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on November 30, 2021, is authored by Allison Master, Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Sapna Cheryan from the Universities of Houston and Washington. The research reports the combined results of four studies that encompass “a large and socioeconomically diverse sample, across multiple racial/ethnic and gender intersections” from age six through adolescence, from first grade through twelfth. The four studies include large cross-sectional surveys in schools and controlled laboratory experiments to “investigate the presence, correlates, and causal effects of gender-interest stereotypes on interest and participation in computer science and engineering activities and classes.”

The authors explain that “in the United States, the representation of women varies widely across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Computer science and engineering have among the largest gender disparities in college, much larger than mathematics, biology, and chemistry.” They note that societal stereotypes depict girls as less interested than boys in computer science and engineering. They define societal stereotypes as “shared beliefs linking groups and traits [that can] have numerous negative consequences.” This study investigates a pervasive stereotype: “that women and girls have lower interest in computer science and engineering.” The authors postulate that interest stereotypes may influence the motivation of students to participate and their sense of whether they would belong if they did participate.

The combined findings from four studies demonstrate that gender-interest stereotypes

  • Exist among a racially and socioeconomically diverse group of children and adolescents across multiple racial/ethnic and gender intersections.
  • More strongly predict girls’ motivation to pursue computer science and engineering courses than gender-ability stereotypes.
  • Cause girls to be less interested than boys in pursuing novel and computer science–related activities.
  • Cause girls to have a lower sense of belonging, which mediates their lower interest in computer science activities.
  • Were endorsed by Black, Asian, Latinx, and White girls and boys.

The real-world implications of gender disparities in computer science and engineering are numerous and contribute to many societal inequities:

  • The existence of products and services that overlook and sometimes selectively harm women and children.
  • Gender disparities in lucrative fields such as computer science and engineering, which is a significant source of the gender wage gap.
  • The stereotype that girls are less interested in computer science, which may send girls a signal that they do not belong and dissuade them from developing an interest in these fields.
  • The observed reality that children see, such as the fact that few girls are in optional computer science and engineering classes and few adult women are working in these fields, which might further send a message to girls that they do not belong.

The authors close by noting, “Initial choices to forsake STEM may compound over time and develop into larger disparities in course enrollment, choice of major, and choice of career.” This certainly happened to me. They suggest that “addressing these societal gender-interest stereotypes before they take root in the minds of young children may help remedy disparities and improve educational equity.”

We need to instill a sense of curiosity and belonging to all genders in all fields of study, especially when they are younger.

 

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Sexual Harassment in the Los Angeles Fire Department

It has been about twenty years since the Los Angeles Fire Department upgraded their fire stations to add women’s locker rooms and restrooms. These changes were intended to reflect a commitment to create an inclusive environment for women to join the LAFD, where they could realize their dreams and add their talents and passions to community service as firefighters. Libby Denkmann, writing for the 19th, reports that twenty years later, female LAFD firefighters still face

  • Verbal abuse
  • Isolation
  • Hostile pranks
  • Training exercises designed to humiliate them
  • Threats of violence and actual assaults

Unfortunately, reports Denkmann, who interviewed more than twenty sources, speaking out or filing a complaint is rare for women and other minorities because of intimidation and retaliation while “institutions meant to protect them generally look the other way or enable the misconduct.” Denkmann points out that all of this is happening in a highly political context in Los Angeles where “the firefighters’ union remains a key endorsement for local and national politicians, and firefighters enjoy a heroic status in the public’s imagination, which critics say protects the department from lasting consequences.”

The low representation of women in the LAFD is similar to low numbers nationally:

  • There are currently 115 female sworn firefighters in the LAFD—roughly 3.5 percent of the force of 3,300.
  • These numbers reflect a modest improvement from 2.9 percent women at the department when Mayor Garcetti took office in 2013. He pledged to increase women in the LAFD to 5 percent by 2020 but has fallen short of that goal.
  • Nationally, women represent only 4 percent of professional firefighters.
  • Both San Francisco and Minneapolis have done much better with about 15 percent of sworn fire personnel being female.
  • But in New York and Chicago, women make up only 1 percent of the fire service.

The numbers for female fire service personnel are quite weak overall, especially when compared to the representation of women in the police and military services:

  • Slightly more than 18 percent of sworn LA Police Department personnel are women
  • The US military’s total force was 16.5 percent female in 2018.

The stories of harassment relayed to the author by the women she interviewed in Los Angeles were disgusting and outrageously abusive. The types of behaviors described were common in many professions in the 1970s and 1980s when women entered a range of male-dominated professions for the first time, but these behaviors have been largely extinguished as organizations took serious steps to create harassment-free workplaces. We know it can be done but not until leaders make a commitment to change the cultures of their organizations and professions and hold violators accountable. These women in the LAFD passed every test and are able to do everything the men can do physically, but pressure to accept women is usually met with arguments that to do so would “lower their standards.” As one female firefighters noted, “They don’t need to lower their standards. They just need to lower the abuse.”

 

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Why Paid Family Leave Is Good for Fathers Too

The issue of paid family leave has recently resurfaced as a topic of debate in the United States because we are the only wealthy Western country that does not provide it. I have written in previous posts about the possible reasons why it has not been made available in the United States and why paid parental leave is a policy that would benefit both mothers and fathers. Still, the focus in public debate remains on paid leave, and parenting, as a women’s issue, is a private matter not of concern in the public realm even with evidence to the contrary revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an article by Darby Saxbe and Sofia Cardenas, published in the New York Times, a number of new studies, including their own, show the benefits for men and families of paid paternity leave. Saxbe and Cardenas conducted research at the University of Southern California (USC) and found that among six thousand couples followed from when their child was a baby until kindergarten age, even when the father took only a week or two of paternity leave, 26 percent of couples were more likely to stay married compared with ones where the father took no leave. Another study from USC found that when fathers took paternity leave, children reported closer relationships with their dads nine years later.

Saxbe and Cardenas note that several new studies show that parenting transforms men’s brains and bodies in ways that might improve relationships:

Spain—A recent study of Spanish fathers found changes in their brains after the birth of a child that predicted stronger responses to infant images.

Japan—New research in Japan showed stronger brain responses to videos of infants in fathers who worked fewer hours and less changes in the brains of fathers who worked more and spent less time with their infants.

Holland—A Dutch study found that fathers randomized to wear a soft baby carrier for three weeks showed development in the “fathering brain” as stronger responses to infant cries in the amygdala.

Same-sex relationships—A rare study of fathers in same-sex relationships found the “primary caregiver” father’s brain looked more like a mother’s than did that of the “secondary caregiver” dad.

The authors conclude that “time with infants is a key ingredient in building the fathering brain. In other words, policies that support fathers’ time at home after birth may help mold men into more attuned fathers.”

Paternity leave benefits mothers in many ways too:

  • The authors report that a new study published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies that measured sleep, stress, and depression in couples found that the mental health of mothers was better when their partners took paternity leave.
  • A study of a Swedish policy reform that encouraged fathers to take paternity leave found that mothers who gave birth after the reform were 14 percent less likely to seek care for postpartum medical complications and 26 percent less likely to get a prescription for antianxiety medication.

Saxbe and Cardenas point out that 186 other countries offer paid family leave and 70 percent of adults in the United States support passing legislation to create paid family leave. This policy would benefit everyone, not just women.

US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg took four weeks of paid family leave this year when he and his husband adopted newborn twins. Buttigieg has talked about the importance of taking this time off to relieve stress on his partner and to allow the two fathers to share parenting and bond with their children. The authors note, “As a high-profile leader who is unapologetically taking time off to care for his family, Mr. Buttigieg may be the father figure we all need.”

Jessica Grose writes that if it is up to the private sector, the majority of parents in the United States will never have access to paid family leave. This is not a “woman’s issue.” She suggests, “We need more fathers—and men in general—to be vocal” about the need for legislation to make paid family leave a reality. There may never be a better time than right now for men to step forward and speak out.

 

Photo courtesy of Lars Plougmann (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Midcareer Women Face Postpandemic Ageism

Ageism in employment has been well-documented, especially for women. In a previous post, I wrote about the difficulties that women over fifty often face in getting hired or retaining employment. A new study conducted by AARP on midcareer women, reported by Sara Luterman for the 19th, found that women aged forty to sixty-five are facing more difficulties in bouncing back from pandemic layoffs than their younger peers. Because of ageism, the long-term negative impact on their financial health could be devastating.

The AARP study found that midcareer women say their financial situation has worsened and they are having difficulty getting hired:

  • One in four women ended up taking on credit card debt to cover basic expenses like rent or food.
  • One in ten women ended up dipping into retirement savings.
  • One in five midcareer women are worried about being laid off or having their hours reduced.
  • Two-thirds of midcareer women who lost their jobs during the pandemic have been out of work for six months or more, a status defined as “long-term unemployed.”
  • One-third cite age discrimination as the greatest impediment to finding a job.
  • Midcareer women of color reported experiencing age discrimination at higher rates than their White peers.
  • Women who already had caregiving responsibilities found those increased. More than half of midcareer Latinas cared for a child, grandchild, or disabled adult family member during the pandemic.

Some long-term implications for the financial health of older women, reported in a previous post, include the following:

  • Lower lifetime earnings lead to lower Social Security benefits for women. Women receive benefits that are, on average, 80 percent of those that men receive.
  • Lower lifetime earnings can reduce the amount of wealth women can accumulate from employer-sponsored retirement plans.
  • Women tend to live longer than men, often draw down their savings over a longer period, and thus are more likely to run out of retirement savings.

We must keep the pressure on our elected representatives to develop policies and programs to ensure that midcareer women do not find themselves destitute in their old age because of the pandemic.

 

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New Cracks in the Glass Ceiling

I want to bring to your attention some new cracks in the glass ceiling. Let’s celebrate some good news today.

Nathalie Stutzmann

Javier C. Hernández, writing for the New York Times, notes, “The 25 largest orchestras in the United States have something in common: Not one is led by a woman.” That is about to change with the appointment of Nathalie Stutzmann, a conductor and singer from France, as the musical director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. A world-renowned contralto singer, Stutzmann was discouraged from becoming a conductor by her music teachers because of her gender. The field of conducting has long been dominated by men, and Stutzmann gave up her dream of conducting. Although she became a successful singer who toured widely and made more than eighty recordings, she always longed to be a conductor. She explains, “When you sing you have only one line, one melody. When you conduct you have a hundred lines in your hands.” Hernández explains that she eventually found mentors, including Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, who saw her talents and encouraged her development as a conductor.

Hernández points out that roughly one-third of the music directors of the largest orchestras in the country are planning to retire in the next few years. Perhaps the time has come for women to be more fully represented as musical leaders.

Daisy Veerasingham

The Associated Press (AP) announced the promotion of Daisy Veerasingham to be its new president and chief executive, the first woman and the first person of color to lead the organization in its 175-year old history. Katie Robertson reports that the AP “employs several thousand journalists reporting from 250 bureaus around the world.” Veerasingham, now fifty-one, joined the AP in 2004 in London and was promoted to chief revenue officer in 2019. She succeeds Gary Pruitt as CEO and president.

Tomb of the Unknowns Honor Guard

In September 2021, for the first time ever, the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, a hallowed military tradition, was carried out by three women. Maria Cramer, writing for the New York Times, notes that “the image of three women upholding a sacred ritual underscored how visible women have become in the military, and moved fellow soldiers, veterans and military historians.” While individual women have been part of the Tomb Guard since 1996, “to see not only one female, but to see three just feels really astounding . . . and something I never thought I would see in my lifetime,” explained First Lieutenant Ruth Robinson, who attended the ceremony.

Cramer explains that the Tomb of the Unknowns was created in 1921 for the unidentified remains of a soldier killed in World War I as a symbol of mourning and sacrifice. In 1937, the military installed a twenty-four-hour guard post at the tomb. She notes that women were not allowed to volunteer for the Tomb Guard Platoon until 1994. While three women earned the Tomb Guard Identification Badge between 1996 and 1998, allowing them to serve in the Tomb Guard Platoon, no other woman did so again until 2015.

The image of three female soldiers performing the ceremony of the changing of the guard provides a “visual marker” of the “often unrecognized sacrifices that women and other marginalized people in the United States have made for the military,” notes Professor Micki McElya, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut. She goes on to say that “women have served either officially or unofficially in every single war that country has ever waged.” She also points out that because women have never been drafted, they served because they wanted to.

It’s important to stop and take a moment to celebrate these new cracks in the glass ceiling. It’s about time for these changes to occur, and there are many more needed.

 

Photo courtesy of Tony Fischer (CC BY

Reducing Gender Bias in Performance Evaluations

A new study from Yale researchers, led by Tristan L. Botelho, found clear evidence of gender bias in restaurant reviews. The researchers used a huge database of 1.6 million Yelp reviews of restaurants that mentioned a server for more than fifty thousand restaurants in eleven urban areas from 2004 to 2017. The gender of the server could be identified in about one-fifth of the reviews based on gendered language such either Elite or non-Elite members of Yelp, and ratings were compared by reviewer status and the gender of the server mentioned.

Several key findings emerged from the analysis that have implications for gender bias in workplace performance evaluations:

  • Restaurant reviews mentioning women servers are more likely to get one star and less likely to get five stars. This is comparable to previous research showing gender bias in performance evaluations in the workplace.
  • The gender gap in ratings becomes smaller after reviewers are recognized or rewarded with Elite status from Yelp. The authors suggest that putting a spotlight on them may motivate them to evaluate their dining experience more fairly. Elite members gave out fewer one- and five-star reviews and more three- and four-star reviews, and the gender differences shrank.
  • Only 7 percent of Elite reviewers mentioning a waitress gave a one-star rating compared to 25 percent of the non-Elite reviews mentioning a waitress.
  • When the authors compared the reviews of Elite users before and after attaining Elite status, they found a significant reduction in gender bias.

The authors conclude it is the reward itself—the status designation of Elite reviewer—that seems to have caused a change in reviewing behavior. Botelho, the lead researcher, suggests, “Workplaces could achieve a similar effect by subjecting manager’s hiring and promotion decisions to stronger scrutiny.” Specifically, when workers want to reject a job applicant or deny a promotion, they should be required to justify their decision in a group meeting. And instead of giving a vague reason, such as “This person is not a good fit,” they would need to specify a specific key performance indicator that a candidate failed to meet.

These steps could, as Botelho puts it, “start stripping away the likelihood that individual biases are going to creep in.”

 

Photo courtesy of Lars Plougmann (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Where Are All the Service Workers?

A confusing set of dynamics is happening in the US workforce these days. Perhaps you have noticed, as I have, that almost every sector has staffing shortages: restaurants, hotels, airports, retail stores, childcare providers, and healthcare for starters.

At the same time, the national monthly jobs report shows high rates of hiring, and the stock market is booming, yet the overall level of employment is still millions of jobs lower than before the pandemic, and staffing shortages are everywhere. What is going on?

Sydney Pereira, writing for Prism Reports, notes that the general wisdom during the pandemic was that the extra unemployment benefits made available by the federal government for millions of workers laid off during the pandemic would make people “lazy” and be a disincentive to working when jobs became available. But long after the benefits ended, the jobs are available and staffing shortages remain. In fact, the current staffing shortages are in large part caused by workers who have jobs but are quitting at unprecedented rates without the extended unemployment benefits. Pereira cites the Bureau of Labor Statistics as showing the following:

  • In August 2021, around 721,000 people quit their jobs in retail.
  • In August 2021, 892,000 workers quit their jobs in the accommodation and food services industries.
  • Overall, nearly 4.3 million people quit their jobs across industries.
  • Women, especially women of color, are leaving the workforce in higher numbers than men.

Pereira cites Elizabeth Gedmark, vice president of A Better Balance, a workers’ rights advocacy organization, as saying, “Women and women of color, especially mothers, face a ‘forced choice’ to leave their jobs due to a lack of workplace support.” Women and families need childcare support, living wages, and reasonable work schedules to stay in the workplace. While this has always been true, Gedmark notes that the pandemic has resulted in a bigger drop in employment for women, especially for women with children. Even the childcare provider industry, which could help women stay in the workforce, has 126,700 fewer workers than before the pandemic.

People are quitting their jobs because

  • Employers do not offer childcare or family support.
  • Wages are so low that workers are burned out from having to work multiple jobs during the pandemic to make ends meet.
  • They have no sick pay or paid family leave benefits—and often no benefits at all.
  • Customers have become rude and even hostile, leaving service workers feeling undervalued, unappreciated, and abused. And customers are paying fewer tips. “It’s not worth it to be treated this way for this very small amount of pay,” stated one interviewee who recently quit his job.

We need a major realignment of wages, social supports, and job training in this country. People want to work and need to work—but they also need a living wage, benefits, and respectful work environments. Change this large needs to be initiated at the national level. We need new laws and labor force policies.

 

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Women Are Better Investors

New research conducted by Fidelity over a ten-year period found that its female customers earned an average of 0.4 percentage points more annually than their male counterparts. Ron Lieber, writing for the New York Times, reports that this difference can be seen as small but “can add up to tens of thousands of dollars more” over a few decades. This research included 5.2 million customer accounts that individuals controlled from 2011 to 2020, excluding 401(k)s, where investment decisions are made by organizations.

Lieber points out, with some seriousness and some humor, that all the titans of Wall Street have been men: Merrill, Lynch, Goldman, Sachs, Charles Schwab, E. F. Hutton, and so on. He says that it was probably a mistake that only men established the culture of investment and banking in this country “because it turns out that women are often better at investing.” He also notes that it is ironic that neither women nor men seem to be aware of this strength women have.

Why do women have better investment returns? The answer seems to be that women tend to trade less. In other words, women let their investments sit for a long time without engaging in trades while men, according to a study by Vanguard over the same decade, make trades 50 percent more than women every year. These new studies by both Fidelity and Vanguard confirm earlier research conducted between 1991 and 1996 and published in the Journal of Finance in 2000 entitled “Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth.” The authors Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean found that “individual investors who traded the most earned an annual return of 6.5 percentage points worse than the overall performance of the stock market.”

Why do men trade too much? Lieber cites scholars Barber, Odean, and William J. Bernstein, a neurologist, as explaining that overconfidence produced by testosterone is the source of the overtrading problem for male investors because

  • Testosterone decreases fear, which can create unnecessary vulnerability when markets fail.
  • Testosterone increases greed, which can lead to taking too much risk.
  • Testosterone contributes to overconfidence, or having more certainty about your investment decisions than is wise.

Lieber explains how men can emulate women when investing:

  1. Make balanced investment decisions.
  2. Take a reasonable amount of risk.
  3. Leave the investment alone (not trading) until you need it.

It’s not hard to see what can go wrong when testosterone drives investment decisions. After all, the market crash of 2008 was all about excessive risk and greed driven by predominantly male investment firms and banks: Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, for example. We need more women at the tables where these decisions get made that affect all of us. And let’s celebrate this strength that women bring!

 

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

 

New Research: The Impact of Everyday Sexism

New research conducted and published by Jessica Nordell and Yaryna Serkez measures the impact of the less visible forms of bias that women experience in the workplace “day after day, week after week.” While many studies have been done on individual dimensions of gender bias, such on women being interrupted more in meetings and unfair performance reviews, these researchers wanted to measure the collective impact of the small indignities that women experience daily. The authors developed a computer simulation where they could manipulate and measure different variables to reveal “how large organizational disparities can emerge from many small, even unintentional biases happening frequently over a long period of time.” Here are some of the small biases they considered:

  • Women’s successful solo projects are valued slightly less than men’s.
  • Their successful joint projects with men accrue them less credit.
  • Women are penalized slightly more when they fail.
  • Women’s potential is underrecognized compared with men’s despite their successes.
  • When women point out examples of unfairness, they are penalized as “self-promoting.”

These biases have all been demonstrated in other studies of individual professions. For example,

  • One study of 500,000 physician referrals showed that women surgeons received fewer referrals after successful outcomes than male surgeons.
  • Women economists are less likely to receive tenure the more they coauthor papers with men.
  • An analysis at a large company found that women’s, as well as minority men’s, performance was effectively “discounted” compared with that of white men.

The authors also examined the differential impact of the intersections of gender with race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of identity. For example, a Bar Association study found that white women and men of color face similar hurdles to being seen as competent, but women of color face more than either group. Backlash also plays out differently. A survey of hundreds of female scientists by Erika Hall of Emory University found that Asian American women reported the highest amount of backlash for self-promotion and assertive behavior. White women were more penalized for demonstrating dominant behavior than Black women.

The findings from this research are dramatic. The mathematical models that the study developed found that even small increases in gender bias could lead to dramatic underrepresentation of women in leadership over time. For example, even when women and men start out at the same entry level, if a woman’s performance is valued at 3 percent less than a man’s, it will take a woman eight and a half years to reach the seventh level of leadership compared to a man who started at the same time, who will reach the same level in four years. When women’s performance is valued at 5 percent less, only 2 percent of the women who started out at the same level as men make it to the C-suite level.

The authors ask, What is to be done? They note that diversity training is common but may not have much impact. They cite studies that show that after mandatory diversity training, there is either no change in promotions or positive evaluations for women, or there is only a short-term impact that doesn’t last. The authors suggest that what does work is

  • Overhauling the promotion process to be less subjective and more fair
  • Actively sponsoring women and people of color
  • Holding their managers accountable for promoting women and people of color
  • Tying compensation to achievement of representational goals

If leaders don’t seriously commit to these actions, then nothing will change.

 

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