What makes the pipeline leak? Women’s gender-based rejection sensitivity and men’s hostile sexism as predictors of expectations of success for their own and the respective other gender group

Abstract

In academia, the proportion of women decreases with each career level. In this research, we examined how this so-called leaky pipeline relates to gender-based relative expectations of success. The participants were students from social sciences where women are the majority among students, such that it is more readily – but erroneously – inferred that gender discrimination is not an issue. We assumed that gender-based relative expectations of success should be predicted by two variables. Women students should experience higher gender-based rejection sensitivity than men students, with gender-based rejection sensitivity mitigating relative success expectations in women, but not in men. Men students should exhibit higher hostile-sexist attitudes toward women than women students, with hostile sexism reducing men students’ but not women students’ relative success expectations. We tested our hypotheses in an (under-)graduate sample of women and men students enrolled in educational or psychological majors (N = 372). Results show that a quarter of the women students expected men to be more successful than women and that proportionately more women than men students indicated that women have worse chances of success than men in the job they aspire to. Women were more concerned about being treated differently because of their gender than men, and men held more sexist attitudes toward women than women, with gender-based rejection sensitivity contributing to women students’ and sexism to men students’ expectation that their own gender group will less likely succeed in their aimed for future job. Implications how the leaky pipeline can be patched are discussed.

Stochastic modelling of intersectional pay gaps in universities

“…Structural reasons as well as the impact of biases might account for the differences in performance scores and have been explored in relation to a gendered productivity gap [48], or productivity puzzle [49]. Women expect men to perform better—and men agree [41]. They deal with a mosaic of inequity in financial compensation, grant funding, publications, authorship, citations, and speaking roles [50], all of which seem to be more pronounced when adding race/ethnicity characteristics [12,32].…”

“…Women, especially tenured women, are more likely to leave or consider leaving owing to poor workplace climate rather than concerns about work-life balance [ 19 ]. Attrition has led to the popular descriptions of a glass ceiling and leaky pipeline [ 41 , 42 ] a predominantly male academic work environment, where quality and potential are more often doubted in female candidates than in male candidates [ 43 , 44 ]. The comparatively early exit and/or late entry might be owing to dissatisfaction with pay and promotion opportunities [ 45 ] family obligations, which fall disproportionately on women [ 46 ], and motherhood [ 47 ].…”

The perceived role fit of women and men academics: evidence from the social sports sciences

“…Respondents were also asked to answer questions related to their individual characteristics, which were considered as related to the perception of gender stereotypes in previous literature (e.g., Carli et al, 2016 ; Branchefsky and Park, 2018 ; Ollrogge et al, 2022 ). First, they were asked to indicate their career stage, resulting in the four dummy variables Student, PhD student, Post-doc , and Professor .…”

“…In contrast, both women and men full professors perceived a higher fit (van Veelen and Derks, 2022b ). Women undergraduate students think that men are more likely to pursue successful careers than women, indicating that those women students tend to attribute success at a later career stage to the social role of men (Ollrogge et al, 2022 ). In a qualitative interview study with professors, agentic (i.e., masculine) attributes were perceived as more important for individuals in the pre-tenure stages.…”

A woman's place is in the lead: a narrative research study exploring nonprofit women leaders' experiences in getting to the corner office

“…That study found that women of color are more able to relate to the populations their organizations serve but feel less confident about their fundraising abilities. Ollrogge et al (2022) investigated expectations of women's success in the social sciences among students in the field. They found that, despite outnumbering men in the classroom and in the field, women are less confident of their ability to be successful in their careers and feel that men would be successful.…”