A Man's World? The Impact of a Male Dominated Environment on Female Leadership

Abstract

Despite the significant growth in female labor force participation and educational attainment over the past decades, few women reach leadership positions. In this study, we explore whether male dominated environments, in and of themselves, adversely affect women´s willingness to lead a team. We find that women randomly assigned to male majority teams are less willing to become team leaders than women assigned to female majority teams. Analyses of potential mechanisms show that women in male majority teams are less confident in their relative performance, less influential, and more swayed by others in team discussions. They also (accurately) believe that they will receive less support from team members in a leadership election. Taken together, our results indicate that the absence of women in male dominated contexts may be a self-reinforcing process.

Beliefs about Gender

“…In a study of overconfidence not focused on gender, Moore and Healy (2008)-henceforth, MH-attribute it to imperfect information about individual ability. 16 Excess optimism for hard questions may also be due to a mechanical overweighting of low probability events, possibly related to the probability weighting function of Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory (1979). Alternatively, these distortions could be due to over-precision, or excessive confidence in the accuracy of beliefs (MH 2008).…”

Does the Election of a Female Leader Clear the Way for More Women in Politics?

“…In particular, voters may be more likely to update their views about female politicians if those women won their office in a competitive election against men. 5 Third, our study highlights the relatively benign context for women in politics in Germany. Most research on exposure to female leadership in politics focuses on countries that are perceived as relatively male-dominated, such as India or Italy.…”

“…7 4 See also Casas-Arce and Saiz (2015). 5 Nevertheless, there is evidence that quotas too can decrease voter bias (Beaman et al, 2009;DePaloa, Scoppa, and Lombardo 2010). 6 Especially in India discrimination against women has been historically prevalent, both in politics and more generally in society (see for example http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-20863860).…”

Women in Creative Labor: Inventors, Entrepreneurs and Academics

“…28 In a laboratory experiment, Born et al documented that female participants are less likely to volunteer for leadership roles in male-majority teams. 29 The main driving forces behind this finding are that women in male-majority teams are less confident, less influential, more swayed by others, and correctly expect less support from team members than women in female-majority teams.…”