After all the brouhaha about the women who apparently lost her offer after asking for better terms, the NYtimes has an article on "Moving Past Gender Barriers to Negotiate a Raise"
They write that:
"Some women may bridle — justifiably — at adjusting their behavior to conform to stereotypes. But the negotiation experts say that they think about these strategies pragmatically.
“These stereotypes will hold us back, so we might as well use them to move forward,” added Joan C. Williams, a co-author of “What Works for Women at Work.”
I like the
"Women also need to legitimize their requests, or find ways to make them seem more appropriate, according to a study that Prof. Riley Bowles and Prof. Babcock published in 2012. That means saying something like, “My supervisor suggested that I to talk to you about raising my compensation.”
I think the most useful may be:
"Fact-Finding
Women tend to negotiate less for themselves than men, when there aren't clear standards on what they should be asking for, studies found. In fact, women worked longer and made fewer errors but paid themselves less than men did for similar tasks, according to another study. But that effect went away when women were given data on what others paid themselves."
I tell all my students that when they negotiate, they should first try to find out what is possible and easy at that particular institution, and what is hard.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Negotiation: Sometimes it hurts to ask
The slate has a nice story about "Negotiating While Female: Sometimes It Does Hurt to Ask"
" woman who says she was offered a tenure-track philosophy position at Nazareth College, a liberal arts school in Rochester, N.Y. She replied, she says, by emailing the selection committee:
As you know, I am very enthusiastic about the possibility of coming to Nazareth. Granting some of the following provisions would make my decision easier[:]
1) An increase of my starting salary to $65,000, which is more in line with what assistant professors in philosophy have been getting in the last few years.
2) An official semester of maternity leave.
3) A pre-tenure sabbatical at some point during the bottom half of my tenure clock.
4) No more than three new class preps per year for the first three years.
5) A start date of academic year 2015 so I can complete my postdoc.
She ended the email by writing, "I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others. Let me know what you think."
Their alleged response:
Thank you for your email. The search committee discussed your provisions. They were also reviewed by the Dean and the VPAA. It was determined that on the whole these provisions indicate an interest in teaching at a research university and not at a college, like ours, that is both teaching and student centered. Thus, the institution has decided to withdraw its offer of employment to you.
Thank you very much for your interest in Nazareth College. We wish you the best in finding a suitable position."
They then go on to say
" “It’s not that women can’t negotiate, but they have to be much more careful about how,” Babcock told me on the phone. “Men can use a wide variety of negotiation approaches and still be effective. But women generally need to pull off a softer style.”
The reasons for this are complex, but they boil down to “what’s normal, what the norms are,” says Babcock. “We’re used to seeing women being less aggressive, more soft. And when people don’t behave the way we expect them to, there are often negative consequences: You’d see similar social penalties if a man in a business context broke down and cried.”
I asked her what W could have done differently in light of the negotiation double standard. “Email is hard,” she replied. “It feels very direct, cold, and assertive, and it’s easy to misinterpret.”
Still, based on what we know, Babcock thinks W did a lot of things right. She expressed enthusiasm and showed that she respected the hiring committee’s constraints. “If a man had sent that message,” Babcock says, “I suspect it might have been dismissed as a rookie mistake. Rescinding the offer rather than just refusing the requests is horrifying.”"
" woman who says she was offered a tenure-track philosophy position at Nazareth College, a liberal arts school in Rochester, N.Y. She replied, she says, by emailing the selection committee:
As you know, I am very enthusiastic about the possibility of coming to Nazareth. Granting some of the following provisions would make my decision easier[:]
1) An increase of my starting salary to $65,000, which is more in line with what assistant professors in philosophy have been getting in the last few years.
2) An official semester of maternity leave.
3) A pre-tenure sabbatical at some point during the bottom half of my tenure clock.
4) No more than three new class preps per year for the first three years.
5) A start date of academic year 2015 so I can complete my postdoc.
She ended the email by writing, "I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others. Let me know what you think."
Their alleged response:
Thank you for your email. The search committee discussed your provisions. They were also reviewed by the Dean and the VPAA. It was determined that on the whole these provisions indicate an interest in teaching at a research university and not at a college, like ours, that is both teaching and student centered. Thus, the institution has decided to withdraw its offer of employment to you.
Thank you very much for your interest in Nazareth College. We wish you the best in finding a suitable position."
They then go on to say
" “It’s not that women can’t negotiate, but they have to be much more careful about how,” Babcock told me on the phone. “Men can use a wide variety of negotiation approaches and still be effective. But women generally need to pull off a softer style.”
The reasons for this are complex, but they boil down to “what’s normal, what the norms are,” says Babcock. “We’re used to seeing women being less aggressive, more soft. And when people don’t behave the way we expect them to, there are often negative consequences: You’d see similar social penalties if a man in a business context broke down and cried.”
I asked her what W could have done differently in light of the negotiation double standard. “Email is hard,” she replied. “It feels very direct, cold, and assertive, and it’s easy to misinterpret.”
Still, based on what we know, Babcock thinks W did a lot of things right. She expressed enthusiasm and showed that she respected the hiring committee’s constraints. “If a man had sent that message,” Babcock says, “I suspect it might have been dismissed as a rookie mistake. Rescinding the offer rather than just refusing the requests is horrifying.”"
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Making german gender neutral
The guardian has a nice post on how Germany wants to make its language more gender neutral.
They write that
"Predictions vary: one suggestion is that Angela Merkel will eventually no longer be die Bundeskanzlerin but a neutral das Bundeskanzler, as she would be in English. Others believe that the feminine gender, already the most common fallback form used by non-native speakers, will become the default article: a policeman would no longer be der Polizist but die Polizist."
I can't see my fellow Austrians saying die Polizist. But on a positive note:
Austria changed the words of the National Anthem, so now we not only are the country that is the home of great sons but the home of great sons and daughters...
They write that
"Predictions vary: one suggestion is that Angela Merkel will eventually no longer be die Bundeskanzlerin but a neutral das Bundeskanzler, as she would be in English. Others believe that the feminine gender, already the most common fallback form used by non-native speakers, will become the default article: a policeman would no longer be der Polizist but die Polizist."
I can't see my fellow Austrians saying die Polizist. But on a positive note:
Austria changed the words of the National Anthem, so now we not only are the country that is the home of great sons but the home of great sons and daughters...
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Test Taking: New SAT
The new SAT will have one feature that stroke me as particularly interesting: as reported by the NYtimes:
"Some changes will make the new SAT more like the ACT, which for the last two years has outpaced the SAT in test takers. Thirteen states administer the ACT to all public high school juniors, and three more are planning to do so. The ACT has no guessing penalty, and its essay is optional. It also includes a science section, and while the SAT is not adding one, the redesigned reading test will include a science passage."
This might be a good thing when I think about Katie Baldiga Coffman's work:
Gender Differences in Willingness to Guess (Forthcoming in Management Science)
We present the results of an experiment that explores whether women are less willing than men to guess on multiple-choice tests. Our test consists of practice questions from SAT II subject tests; we vary whether a penalty is imposed for a wrong answer and the salience of the evaluative nature of the task. We find that when no penalty is assessed for a wrong answer, all test-takers answer every question. But, when there is a penalty for wrong answers, women answer significantly fewer questions than men. We see no differences in knowledge of the material or confidence in the test-takers, and differences in risk preferences explain less than half of the observed gap. Making the evaluative aspect of the test more salient does not impact the gender gap. We show that, conditional on their knowledge of the material, test-takers who skip questions do significantly worse on our test.
Apparently the ACT has a slightly lower gender gap in math than the SAT, I wonder if that is actually the case and whether someone looked at this.
I blogged about Katie's paper before (when she was still Katie Baldiga, here)
"Some changes will make the new SAT more like the ACT, which for the last two years has outpaced the SAT in test takers. Thirteen states administer the ACT to all public high school juniors, and three more are planning to do so. The ACT has no guessing penalty, and its essay is optional. It also includes a science section, and while the SAT is not adding one, the redesigned reading test will include a science passage."
This might be a good thing when I think about Katie Baldiga Coffman's work:
Gender Differences in Willingness to Guess (Forthcoming in Management Science)
We present the results of an experiment that explores whether women are less willing than men to guess on multiple-choice tests. Our test consists of practice questions from SAT II subject tests; we vary whether a penalty is imposed for a wrong answer and the salience of the evaluative nature of the task. We find that when no penalty is assessed for a wrong answer, all test-takers answer every question. But, when there is a penalty for wrong answers, women answer significantly fewer questions than men. We see no differences in knowledge of the material or confidence in the test-takers, and differences in risk preferences explain less than half of the observed gap. Making the evaluative aspect of the test more salient does not impact the gender gap. We show that, conditional on their knowledge of the material, test-takers who skip questions do significantly worse on our test.
Apparently the ACT has a slightly lower gender gap in math than the SAT, I wonder if that is actually the case and whether someone looked at this.
I blogged about Katie's paper before (when she was still Katie Baldiga, here)
Monday, March 24, 2014
Michigan
I'm giving a talk at the Social, Behavioral, and Experimental Economics (SBEE), Winter 2014 Seminar Series. Come by if you're in Michigan, it's from 3:30-5
I'll talk about Gender Differences in Competitiveness, and especially my most recent work therein
Buser, Thomas, Muriel Niederle and Hessel Oosterbeek, “Gender, Competitiveness and Career Choices,”
I'll talk about Gender Differences in Competitiveness, and especially my most recent work therein
Buser, Thomas, Muriel Niederle and Hessel Oosterbeek, “Gender, Competitiveness and Career Choices,”
Sunday, March 23, 2014
How to Fix the Gender Gap?
Uri Gneezy and Katie Baca-Motes write in Time: "Leaning In Won’t Fix the Gender Gap (Yet)"
I especially like their last sentence
"Don’t make the job interview more competitive than the job itself!"
I especially like their last sentence
"Don’t make the job interview more competitive than the job itself!"
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Microaggressions
The NYtimes has an article on "Students See Many Slights as Racial ‘Microaggressions’" by Tanzina Vega.
"A tone-deaf inquiry into an Asian-American’s ethnic origin. Cringe-inducing praise for how articulate a black student is. An unwanted conversation about a Latino’s ability to speak English without an accent.
This is not exactly the language of traditional racism, but in an avalanche of blogs, student discourse, campus theater and academic papers, they all reflect the murky terrain of the social justice word du jour — microaggressions — used to describe the subtle ways that racial, ethnic, gender and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increasingly diverse culture."
See also the article in the guardian, on "Oxford University's cultural elitism has been exposed by this student campaign"
" Inspired by a similar effort at Harvard, a viral campaign called I, too, am Oxford surfaced last week highlighting the prejudices students from ethnic minority backgrounds experience at the university. It featured pictures of students holding up placards that read "No, I'm not on a scholarship from Africa" and "My voice is not the voice of all black people"; even one saying "I do not sell cocaine"."
"A tone-deaf inquiry into an Asian-American’s ethnic origin. Cringe-inducing praise for how articulate a black student is. An unwanted conversation about a Latino’s ability to speak English without an accent.
This is not exactly the language of traditional racism, but in an avalanche of blogs, student discourse, campus theater and academic papers, they all reflect the murky terrain of the social justice word du jour — microaggressions — used to describe the subtle ways that racial, ethnic, gender and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increasingly diverse culture."
See also the article in the guardian, on "Oxford University's cultural elitism has been exposed by this student campaign"
" Inspired by a similar effort at Harvard, a viral campaign called I, too, am Oxford surfaced last week highlighting the prejudices students from ethnic minority backgrounds experience at the university. It featured pictures of students holding up placards that read "No, I'm not on a scholarship from Africa" and "My voice is not the voice of all black people"; even one saying "I do not sell cocaine"."
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