Defeating the 7-headed dragon in Utrecht, The Netherlands

What a terrific conference last week on improving #gender #equality with #behavioral #insights from Leonie Nicks, #fieldinterventions in the Global South, cross-cultural assessments in up to 60 countries and everything in-between!

Delighted to have had the chance to present our new #maybebaby research with Tyler Okimoto and Eden King.

Thanks again, Belle Derks, Floor Rink, Ruth van Veelen, Francesca Manzi, and Elena Bacchini for your organization, insights, and inspiration, and to everyone who attended/presented at lovely Utrecht University (e.g., Michelle Ryan, Jaime Napier, Janine Bosak, Tanja Hentschel, Clara Kulich, Christopher Begeny, Renata Bongiorno, Jenny Veldman, Loes Meeussen, Melissa Vink, Regina Dutz, and more!). Starting the week very energized!

Counterintuitive consequences of maternal leave?

“Maybe Baby” expectations motivate subtle employee disrespect and work withdrawal

Pregnancy is…a wonderful thing for the woman, it’s a wonderful thing for the husband, it’s certainly an inconvenience for a business. -Donald Trump, President of the United States

Main Findings
Childfree working women report more subtle forms of disrespect (e.g., being interrupted or ignored) from colleagues and supervisors than childfree men, especially in organisations that offer more maternal leave than paternal leave. These uncivil experiences at work also predict employees' career withdrawal one year later.

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Comparison to the General View of the Topic
A wealth of research has highlighted mothers’ many employment disadvantages compared to childfree women and men; however, "actual motherhood is not necessary for young women to experience motherhood penalties” concludes study author Dr. Jamie L. Gloor. Although maternal leave is ostensibly intended to benefit working women (e.g., enhance their economic returns and job security), this might come at the cost of their subtle social mistreatment. Finally, states Dr. Gloor, "if these employees leave, then targeting female leaders and professors for study or intervention may be too late if women have already withdrawn at an earlier career stage."   

Data
Two waves of quantitative survey data were collected one year apart from 474 early career academics (i.e., PhD and post-doctoral students, assistant professors) from all federal and cantonal universities in Switzerland. 

Implications
"Maybe baby” expectations–highlighted by the organizational inconveniences that pregnancy may entail–may be another explanation for the gender gap in leadership and professorships. Thus, "to retain highly educated women in the workforce, reduce "brain drain" and turnover costs,” recommends Dr. Gloor, “organizations might consider making parental leave more accessible to men to reduce or balance out these maybe baby expectations and feelings of potential parental inconvenience toward young female and male employees.” She added, “of course the onus should not be on women to reduce others’ biases towards them, but they, too, can proactively clarify their career committment to reduce these negative efects.”

Reference
Gloor, J. L., Li, X., Lim, S., & Feierabend, A. (in press). An inconvenient truth? Interpersonal and career consequences of "maybe baby" expectations. Journal of Vocational Behavior.*

*This paper was recently honored with the "Emerald Best Paper Based on a Dissertation Award" (Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division) at the 2017 Academy of Management Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, as well as being included in the 2017 Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings. 

Subtle Biases & Structural Change for Gender Equality at UZH

A recent article published in the University of Zurich (UZH) journal featured the 8 projects of the UZH Gender Equality Action Plan (2013-2016). For more information about the Action Plan, the individual projects, or specific results from several of the projects, see here.

As 1 of these 8, our "Assistant Professor Project" (together with Professor Bruno Staffelbach, Dr. Anja Feierabend, and Susanne Mehr, MA UZH) at the faculty for business, economics, and informatics was also featured. In this project, we examined the career and life stages leading up to and including the Assistant Professorship, to determine if this position is a suitable springboard for a professorship. Given that family formation overlays this critical career period, an event that entails more negative gender-based career stereotypes and expectations for women than for men, we also examined if achieving an Assistant Professorship (or higher) differs according to scholar gender, parenthood, or both factors.

Examining gender, parenthood, and the interaction of gender and parenthood (i.e., childless women and men, mothers and fathers) is key in light of the "maybe baby" bias, namely, expectations of risk that a young childless woman might have a child soon. In other words, scholar age is used as a proxy for childbearing chance, which triggers gendered expectations of uncertainty pertaining to temporary (during parental leave) or longer-term (drop-out from the labor market) cost and inconvenience for young female scholars, but not young male scholars.

In 2 peer-reviewed papers presented (2015) or accepted for presentation (2017) at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, a yearly gathering of 10,000+ international management scholars, my coauthors and I argue that even potential parenthood can be hazardous for young women striving to get ahead in their careers: we show that "maybe baby" expectations contribute to gender biases in employment through decision-makers' hiring decisions towards young childless women (here) and coworkers' and supervisors' interpersonal treatment of young childless women (here).

Our central recommendation for an evidence-based structural change to reduce "maybe baby" bias is to more evenly allocate parental leave to both women and men. Currently, women are allotted significantly more parental leave than men at the national- and organizational-levels in Switzerland. Although likely well-intended to aid new mothers' work-life integration, these gender-based discrepancies in parental leave allocation asymmetrically increase the expected cost and inconvenience of women's (potential) childbearing, but not men's. For more information about the Assistant Professor project or our other recommendations, see our final report here.

Best Paper in EURAM Paris!

After 4 days in Paris, plenty of new people, a plethora of papers, and so many socials, another EURAM has now come to a close. We had super Swiss scholar representation from the University of Zurich (e.g., Drs. Christian Voegtlin and Matthias Beck) and CDI in St. Gallen (Dr. Kyrill Bourovoi). It was a lot of fun presenting my new paper (with coauthors Xinxin Li and Sandy Lim from NUS in Singapore, and Anja Feierabend from UZH), 

 “Maybe Baby” in Everyday Employment:
Incivility at the Intersection of Gender and Parenthood

which was nominated as "Most Inspirational Paper" of the entire conference (from 1,500 submissions) and won "Best Paper" of the Organisational Behaviour Strategic Interest Group (from 183 submissions). We're excited and honored for the recognition-I guess we better hurry and get this paper published now... ;-)

Looking forward to seeing some of these now familiar faces from across Europe (and the world) next year in Glasgow!