Gender differences in risk behavior and the link to household effects and individual wealth

This study examined the differences in risk behavior between men and women using a household survey that captured the risk preferences of two members in a household and recorded wealth at the individual level instead of the usual approach of representing wealth at the household level. After controlling for commonly used explanatory variables, such as gender, education, age, and wealth, household fixed effects explain about 15% of the variation in risk behavior. This highlights the magnitude of household effects in shaping one’s risk behavior. In general, females in the study area are more risk averse than males based on a risk game with real payout. The gender differences disappear when focusing on only the top land owners. However, even in those cases, females consider themselves more risk averse, supporting results from previous studies that link culture and societal norms to the gender differences in risk behavior.     

Demand for decision autonomy and the desire to avoid responsibility in risky environments: Experimental evidence

This paper experimentally studies individuals’ willingness to pay for the authority to make risky decisions for themselves, and the willingness to take responsibility for others, as primary determinants of leadership willingness. We consider a setup involving a pair of individuals, where one individual is designated to make both parties’ decisions by default. Depending on treatment, either party can express a willingness to pay to change this situation. If one’s willingness to pay to make her own decision herself is positive (negative), we interpret it as a demand for autonomy (a desire to delegate). On the flip side, if one’s willingness to pay to avoid making a decision on behalf of another person is positive (negative), we interpret it as a desire to avoid responsibility (a demand for authority). We find that on average, individuals are willing to pay positive amounts of money to make their decisions themselves, and incur positive but smaller opportunity costs for the right to make decisions for others. Certain individual and contextual characteristics emerge as important predictors. Notably, (1) men are more likely to demand both autonomy and authority at the same time, (2) individuals with other regarding preferences are more likely to pay to avoid taking responsibility for others’ decisions when the probability of loss is high. Exploring differences between individuals’ own decisions and the decisions they make on behalf of others, we find that subjects with other-regarding preferences tend to “cautious-shift” when making decisions on behalf of others. Also, we find that individuals who would like to avoid responsibility also tend to “shift” their decisions when put in a decision-making role. The results have implications for the allocation of decision-making authority in pairs and leadership.     

Gendered double embeddedness: Finding jobs through networks in the Chinese labor market

Inspired by the concept of “double embeddedness,” we argue that the gender gap in network-based job searching depends on the degree of legitimacy of gender status beliefs across institutional contexts. Analyses from the 2008 Chinese General Social Survey show that the gender gap in network-based job searching is larger in the market sector than in the state sector, as the gender status beliefs are more legitimate in the former than in the latter. Additionally, the sector difference of the gender gap in network-based job searching is significant when the resources channeled through networks are information-related, but it is insignificant when the network resources are influence-related. These findings indicate that job searching is double embedded in social networks and in cultural institutions.     

Revisiting gendered assumptions of practitioner power: An exploratory study examining the role of social media expertise

The purpose of this exploratory study was to expand upon previous literatures in public relations power, and fill the need for more scholarship regarding practitioners’ perceptions of social media work, power, and gender. Findings from a survey of PRSA members showed that there is a gendered difference in power perception between males and females regardless of their PR roles or level of experience, but social media expertise was perceived equally between both genders. We argue that while social media expertise may serve to reduce a gendered power divide in public relations, continued critical exploration of social media and gender inequality is necessary.     

Investor response to appointment of female CEOs and CFOs

We study the impact of appointing women to top executive positions from an investor perspective. We analyze whether shareholders value announcement of appointment of women to top positions differently than they do appointment of men. This study uses an international sample of 100 announcements of top executive appointments of women who replace men and investigates how shareholders respond to such appointments. This research combines an event study with a matched pair analysis to compare the response from investors regarding appointment of female versus male CEOs and CFOs. We establish that investors do not seem to value appointment of women significantly differently from that of men. This finding suggests that, from the investor perspective, there appears to be no business case for a particular gender when it comes to appointing a CEO or CFO.     

社会融合中的性别差异:流动人口工作搜寻时间的实证分析

文章以扩展传统的流动人口社会融合的静态研究视角,使用国家人口计生委2010年上半年流动人口动态监测调查数据,从男女农村流动人口工作搜寻时间的角度进一步比较农村流动人口融入流入地劳动力市场过程的性别差异及影响因素。文章采用持续时间模型,通过研究农村流动人口在流入地城市找工作所花费时间的影响因素,发现虽然在给定时间内,女性流动人口在流入地找到工作所花费的时间比男性要短,但女性找到高收入工作的概率要低于男性,而接受低收入工作的概率要大于男性,从而导致性别区隔的流动人口社会融入模式。     

大学生性别角色群体对同性恋态度的研究

同性恋是当今社会无法回避且必须正视的问题之一,高校校园中的同性恋状况更值得关注。对1288名大学生的调查发现,大学生中的未分化角色和双性化角色比例较高,大学生群体的性别角色与其对同性恋的态度具有一定关联性。同性恋在高校校园具有一定的比例,但大学生对同性恋的态度总体比较客观和宽容,同时也发现现有性别教育不能满足现实需要,应该通过防艾知识教育、心理健康教育、性别角色教育加强大学生的性别教育。     

性别因素与脆弱儿童的长期照顾

性别因素对脆弱儿童的长期照顾的影响主要体现在以下方面:第一,在父死母嫁的情况下,女孩更容易被带入新的家庭,融入新的家庭中,成为其成员;而男孩则更容易被留在原生家庭中,形成与祖父母之间的隔代抚养关系。第二,在收养方面,女孩更容易被收养从而进入正常的家庭环境。以上这些状况的形成与亚洲地区男孩的性别偏好有非常重要的关系,这对于目前的社会福利政策与社会照顾体系提出了新的要求,需要采取一系列的措施与政策。如:通过现有的社会救助体系对祖父母—孙子女的隔代抚养关系给予支持与照顾;充分发挥社区作用,为脆弱儿童提供支持与保护;充分发挥儿童福利院的作用,为脆弱儿童提供专业支持和心理、情感指导,与家庭、社区相结合,共同为脆弱儿童的成长提供支持。     

Gender identity and lexical variation in social media

We present a study of the relationship between gender, linguistic style, and social networks, using a novel corpus of 14,000 Twitter users. Prior quantitative work on gender often treats this social variable as a female/male binary; we argue for a more nuanced approach. By clustering Twitter users, we find a natural decomposition of the dataset into various styles and topical interests. Many clusters have strong gender orientations, but their use of linguistic resources sometimes directly conflicts with the population‐level language statistics. We view these clusters as a more accurate reflection of the multifaceted nature of gendered language styles. Previous corpus‐based work has also had little to say about individuals whose linguistic styles defy population‐level gender patterns. To identify such individuals, we train a statistical classifier, and measure the classifier confidence for each individual in the dataset. Examining individuals whose language does not match the classifier's model for their gender, we find that they have social networks that include significantly fewer same‐gender social connections and that, in general, social network homophily is correlated with the use of same‐gender language markers. Pairing computational methods and social theory thus offers a new perspective on how gender emerges as individuals position themselves relative to audiences, topics, and mainstream gender norms.     

Apron strings of working mothers: Maternal employment and housework in cross-national perspective

This paper asks whether maternal employment has a lasting influence on the division of household labor for married women and men. Employing multi-level models with 2002 ISSP survey data for 31 countries, we test the lagged accommodation hypothesis that a long societal history of maternal employment contributes to more egalitarian household arrangements. Our results find that living in a country with a legacy of high maternal employment is positively associated with housework task-sharing, even controlling for the personal socialization experience of growing up with a mother who worked for pay. In formerly socialist countries, however, there is less gender parity in housework than predicted by the high historical level of maternal employment.