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: msmyk@wne.uw.edu.pl

More about our research on http://grape.uw.edu.pl

Twitter: @GrapeUW