Closing gaps or creating new ones?
This is the second in this year’s series of posts by PhD students on the job market. Despite continuous efforts to promote gender equality, women’s representation in STEM jobs remains low worldwide at only 29% ( Gender Gap Report 2023 ). The gender gap in high-paying STEM careers contributes to the overall gender wage gap ( Blau & Kahn 2017 ). Educational institutions often implement affirmative action (AA) to address these disparities and to increase minority representation in both education and the labor force. While such policies can improve diversity and outcomes of the beneficiaries ( Bagde et al 2016 ; Khanna 2020 ), they may also reinforce negative stereotypes ( Coate & Loury 1993 ). Specifically, gender-based AA policies that lower admission standards at top STEM colleges to boost female representation may shift firms' perceptions of women’s average ability, potentially increasing statistical discrimination by gender and widening labor market gender gaps. My job mar...

Comments
Post a Comment