Download - Request experiment at WES
Gender, beauty and support networks in academia: evidence from a field experiment
Magdalena SmykMichał Krawczyk
Warsaw Economic Seminar 2016
Group for Research in Applied Economics
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MotivationGender differences in academic productivity – large unexplained component
Social support networks and gender inequalities in academia
Participation in social network increase probability of receiving job offer (McDonald, 2011) and scientific productivity (Reagans and Zuckerman, 2001).
Differences in experience between women and men: Mentoring (Chandler, 1996) Collaboration (Gersick et al. 2000)
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Can we blame „ old-boys network”?
Do scholars prefer to „lend a hand” to male researcher rather than female?
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Study I (data request)247 papers (with experiments that meet certain criteria)
Ask for raw data from their experiments
E-mails from two accounts: Female student Male student
Randomly chosen samples of subjects: equal distribution of male and female subjects three geographical regions (Europe, Australia and Asia,
Americas).After three weeks - reminder
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Study I – measures of success Two measures:
Response rate = number of responses we received/ number of e-mails sent (succesfully)
Compliance rate = number of datasets we received/ number of e-mails sent
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Study I (data request) - RESULTS
Female Student Male Student
No. of requests 100 105
Response rate 75% 74.3%
MWW test (p-value) 0.91
Marginal effects* -0.01 (insignificant)
Compliance rate 34% 35.2%
MWW test (p-value) 0.85
Marginal effects* -0.02 (insignificant)
Notes: *probit regression; gender, university region, fixed effects of journal, date of sending the request and number of datasets we asked for.
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Study IIExtension:
10 fields of study: psychology, sociology, economics, mathematics, law, computer science, philosophy, medicine, physics and chemistry
two types of request (much smaller):
Article treatment – we ask for full text of subject’s paper
Meeting treatment – we ask for a meeting during office hours or Skype/phone call to discuss possible mentoring for graduate studies
additional dimension: physical attractiveness
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Physical attractivenessPre-study: Pictures with the highest and the lowest average rank were chosen.
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Requestor website and Google+ account
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Subjects in Study II
One hundred top faculties from QS World University Rankings
Four (randomly chosen) scholars from each facultyFaculties without websites or without list of employees – excluded
Article Treatment – 1287 scholars (without non-English writers and scholars without papers)
Meeting Treatment – 1488 scholars Lack of gender balance in the sample (much more males)
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Study II – measures of successResponse rate = number of responses we received/ number of e-mails sent (succesfully)
Article Treatment:Compliance rate = number of full papers we received/ number of e-mails sent
Meeting Treatment:Compliance rate = number of meeting aggrement or proposition/ number of e-mails sent
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Study II – results (Article Treatment) Attractive
FemaleLess
Attractive Female
Attractive Male
Less Attractive
MaleNo. of requests 343 307 337 300Response rate 56.6% 67.1% 63.2% 62.4%MWW test p-value (vs. attractive female) 0.006 0.08 0.08(vs. less attractive female) 0.3 0.33(vs. attractive male) 0.97
Compliance rate 49% 60% 56.7% 54.8%MWW test p-value (vs. attractive female) 0.005 0.04 0.2(vs. unattractive female) 0.4 0.14(vs. attractive male) 0.5
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Study II – results (Meeting Treatment) Attractive
FemaleLess
Attractive Female
Attractive Male
LessAttractive
MaleNo. of requests 370 378 374 366Response rate 45.7% 47.6% 43.9% 44.3%MWW test p-value (vs. attractive female) 0.59 0.62 0.7(vs. less attractive female) 0.3 0.36(vs. attractive male) 0.91Compliance rate 29.2% 34.4% 27% 27.6%MWW test p-value (vs. attractive female) 0.13 0.51 0.63(vs. unattractive female) 0.03 0.05
(vs. attractive male) 0.86
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Study II – results (probit) Article
treatment (1)
Article treatment
(2)
Meeting treatment
(1)
Meeting treatment
(2)
response compliance response compliance
attractive female -0.08* -0.11*** 0.02 0.02
less attractive female 0.03 0.18 0.05 0.09***
less attractive male -0.02 -0.06 -0.005 0.001
female scholar -0.05 -0.07** -0.09*** -0.09***
Observations 1287 1287 1488 1488
Notes: Marginal effects from probit regressions; reference category is attractive male; regressions include subjects’ characteristics (gender, university region, university ranking position, field of study), date of sending the request and year of the paper publication (in Article treatment); *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.
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Robustness check and additional dimensions Interactions: gender of the subject and treatment – insignificant = lack of „old-boys network” signs
Stronger results (higher marginal effect) in subsample of subjects who has G-Talk option available
Lack of specific field effectsNr of unique vistors on websites = 44% of the nr of subjects
Attractive senders websites more popular by 10 pp on average
Refusals in Meeting Treatment: 55/124 (males) to 34/111 (females) negative e-mail with
explanation why someone cannot meet with reqeustor
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Conlusions
GOOD NEWS :No gender bias in responding to or fullfilling requestsResult was strong and robust in both studies (and in many different fields)
BUT…Attractivness can play a role – but only in the case of female students
Thank you for your attention!
Author: Magdalena Smyk, Michał Krawczyke-mail: [email protected]
More about our research on http://grape.uw.edu.pl
Twitter: @GrapeUW