On the trajectory of discrimination: A meta-analysis and forecasting survey capturing 44 years of field experiments on gender and hiring decisions

Schaerer, Michael; du Plessis, Christilene; Nguyen, My Hoang Bao; van Aert, Robbie C.M.; Tiokhin, Leo; Lakens, Daniël; Giulia Clemente, Elena; Pfeiffer, Thomas; Dreber, Anna; Johannesson, Magnus; Clark, Cory J.; Luis Uhlmann, Eric

doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2023.104280

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 216 publications

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“…However, there are no experimental studies of academic hiring between 1960 and 1990. Evidence from outside academia, including Schaerer et al’s (2022) meta-analysis, suggests decreasing gender bias in hiring from 1976 to 2009; similarly, Birkelund et al’s (2022) harmonized, cross-national callback analysis shows no discrimination against women in six countries differing along institutional, cultural, and economic dimensions. 9…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There have been many demonstrations of gender bias in the evaluation of women in a variety of non-tenure-track contexts (e.g., Foschi et al, 1994 ; Koch et al, 2015 ; Lavy & Sand, 2015 ; Reuben et al, 2014 ; Swim et al, 1989 ). However, even in the realm of nonacademic hiring, Schaerer et al’s (2022) large-scale meta-analysis and Birkelund et al’s (2022) transnational analysis reported a pro-female hiring bias in recent years.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such unequivocal indicators of excellence are rarely available when hiring outside academia, although recent large-scale analyses report that even in nonacademic domains, there has been a trend in the past two decades for hiring to favor women ( Birkelund et al, 2022 ; Schaerer et al, 2022 ). These indicators are also not available when students choose to rate teachers.…”

Section: Conclusion: Four Insights Derived From This Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 9. The largest meta-analysis of field audits by Schaerer et al (2022) spanned 44 years of findings (1976–2020) and 373,706 applicants from 87 field audits (240 effect sizes), finding that “contrary to the expectations of both laypeople and scientists, who believed that hiring discrimination remains widespread, selection bias in favor of male over female candidates was eliminated and, if anything, slightly reversed in sign starting in 2009” (p. 1). For similar findings, see Birkelund et al (2022) .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration

Ceci

Kahn

Williams

2023

Psychol Sci Public Interest

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We synthesized the vast, contradictory scholarly literature on gender bias in academic science from 2000 to 2020. In the most prestigious journals and media outlets, which influence many people’s opinions about sexism, bias is frequently portrayed as an omnipresent factor limiting women’s progress in the tenure-track academy. Claims and counterclaims regarding the presence or absence of sexism span a range of evaluation contexts. Our approach relied on a combination of meta-analysis and analytic dissection. We evaluated the empirical evidence for gender bias in six key contexts in the tenure-track academy: (a) tenure-track hiring, (b) grant funding, (c) teaching ratings, (d) journal acceptances, (e) salaries, and (f) recommendation letters. We also explored the gender gap in a seventh area, journal productivity, because it can moderate bias in other contexts. We focused on these specific domains, in which sexism has most often been alleged to be pervasive, because they represent important types of evaluation, and the extensive research corpus within these domains provides sufficient quantitative data for comprehensive analysis. Contrary to the omnipresent claims of sexism in these domains appearing in top journals and the media, our findings show that tenure-track women are at parity with tenure-track men in three domains (grant funding, journal acceptances, and recommendation letters) and are advantaged over men in a fourth domain (hiring). For teaching ratings and salaries, we found evidence of bias against women; although gender gaps in salary were much smaller than often claimed, they were nevertheless concerning. Even in the four domains in which we failed to find evidence of sexism disadvantaging women, we nevertheless acknowledge that broad societal structural factors may still impede women’s advancement in academic science. Given the substantial resources directed toward reducing gender bias in academic science, it is imperative to develop a clear understanding of when and where such efforts are justified and of how resources can best be directed to mitigate sexism when and where it exists.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conclusion: Four Insights Derived From This Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration

Ceci

Kahn

Williams

2023

Psychol Sci Public Interest

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“…We consider two questions. First, given declines of sex-and gender-based stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination (Charlesworth & Banaji, 2021;Schaerer et al, 2023), the increased representation of women in positions of leadership, and the "androgenization" of the leader stereotype (Koenig et al, 2011), to what extent do people nowadays still stereotype leaders as men, and as dominant? Second, to the extent that this "alpha male" stereotype of leaders persists, does it translate into preferences-do people prefer male, and/or dominant leaders?…”

Section: The Present Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stereotypes versus Preferences: Revisiting the Role of Alpha Males in Leadership

Wiezel,

Barlev,

Martos

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Why are women underrepresented in positions of leadership? According to the “think manager-think male” model, leaders are stereotyped as male—and, in turn, as dominant—and this stereotype translates into preferences. However, status and leadership can be attained not only by dominance but also by prestige—a less sex-typed pathway. Five studies explored the relationship between leader stereotypes and preferences. University students spontaneously imagined both dominant and prestigious leaders as men (Study 1A, N = 148)—and this generalized across occupational domains (Study 1B, N = 220). However, they preferred women and prestigious leaders over men and dominant leaders. Study 2 (N = 2,692) found this preference for female over male leaders using a large nationally representative U.S. sample from the Pew American Trends Panel. Study 3 (N = 461) experimentally replicated the preference for prestigious female over dominant male leader candidates among university students. In Study 4, (N = 952) online MTurk participants judged politicians from face photographs and again showed a preference for women, which may have partially been due to the inference that women are more likely to use prestige- over dominance-based leadership strategies. Collectively, findings suggest that the belief that people prefer “alpha male” leaders, which might discourage women from pursuing leadership roles and others from nominating them, needs to be updated.

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Addressing diversity in hiring procedures: a generative adversarial network approach

Marra,

Kubiak

2024

AI Ethics

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On the trajectory of discrimination: A meta-analysis and forecasting survey capturing 44 years of field experiments on gender and hiring decisions

Cited by 18 publications

References 216 publications

Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration

Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration

Stereotypes versus Preferences: Revisiting the Role of Alpha Males in Leadership

Addressing diversity in hiring procedures: a generative adversarial network approach

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