IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v33y2019i3p462-482.html

Gender Quotas or Girls’ Networks? Evidence from an Italian Research Selection

Author

Listed:
  • Daniele Checchi

    (FBK-IRVAPP, Italy; University of Milan, Italy; IZA Bonn, Germany)

  • Simona Cicognani

    (University of Verona, Italy)

  • Nevena Kulic

    (European University Institute, Italy)

Abstract

This article investigates the role of the gender composition of selection committees and connections in promoting women in research. Exploiting a newly collected data set on research recruitment processes to entry-level positions in a leading Italian research centre operating mainly in the hard sciences, the study finds that bias against women manifests itself at non-tenured entry level and is attenuated by the presence of a woman on the selection committee. However, the most important predictor for recruitment in the study is previous connections with the research centre, a mechanism which, due to the lower density of network links with the institute among female candidates, operates as a selection device discriminating against women. The results suggest that the gender of the committee members, network structure and type of recruitment must all be considered in approaching recruitment policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniele Checchi & Simona Cicognani & Nevena Kulic, 2019. "Gender Quotas or Girls’ Networks? Evidence from an Italian Research Selection," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(3), pages 462-482, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:3:p:462-482
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017018813071
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017018813071
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017018813071?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greg Duncan, 2008. "When to promote, and when to avoid, a population perspective," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(4), pages 763-784, November.
    2. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2015. "Gender Discrimination and Evaluators’ Gender: Evidence from Italian Academia," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82(325), pages 162-188, January.
    3. Tommaso Colussi, 2018. "Social Ties in Academia: A Friend Is a Treasure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 45-50, March.
    4. Ghazala Azmat, 2019. "Gender diversity in teams," World of Labour, LISER, pages 1-29, May.
    5. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    6. Natalia Zinovyeva & Manuel Bagues, 2015. "The Role of Connections in Academic Promotions," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 264-292, April.
    7. Jose Apesteguia & Ghazala Azmat & Nagore Iriberri, 2012. "The Impact of Gender Composition on Team Performance and Decision Making: Evidence from the Field," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 78-93, January.
    8. repec:iza:izawol:journl:y:2014:p:29 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Christine Wennerås & Agnes Wold, 1997. "Nepotism and sexism in peer-review," Nature, Nature, vol. 387(6631), pages 341-343, May.
    10. Manuel Bagues & Mauro Sylos-Labini & Natalia Zinovyeva, 2017. "Does the Gender Composition of Scientific Committees Matter?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1207-1238, April.
    11. Maarten L. Buis, 2010. "Stata tip 87: Interpretation of interactions in nonlinear models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 10(2), pages 305-308, June.
    12. Giulio Marini & Viviana Meschitti, 2018. "The trench warfare of gender discrimination: evidence from academic promotions to full professor in Italy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 989-1006, May.
    13. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. José J. Domínguez, 2021. "The Effectiveness of Committee Quotas; The Role of Group Dynamics," ThE Papers 21/12, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    2. Sofia Moratti, 2020. "Do Low-Openness, Low-Transparency Procedures in Academic Hiring Disadvantage Women?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-13, May.
    3. Domínguez, José J., 2023. "Diversified committees in hiring processes: Lab evidence on group dynamics," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    4. Makiko Fuwa, 2021. "Women Managers’ Impact on Use of Family-friendly Measures among Their Subordinates in Japanese Firms," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(4), pages 716-734, August.
    5. Filandri, Marianna & Pasqua, Silvia & Priori, Eleonora, 2023. "Breaking through the glass ceiling. Simulating policies to close the gender gap in the Italian academia," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre Deschamps, 2024. "Gender Quotas in Hiring Committees: A Boon or a Bane for Women?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(11), pages 7486-7505, November.
    2. Maria De Paola & Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2017. "Gender differences in the propensity to apply for promotion: evidence from the Italian Scientific Qualification," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 986-1009.
    3. Pierre Deschamps, 2018. "Gender Quotas in Hiring Committees: a Boon or a Bane for Women?," Post-Print hal-03393117, HAL.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7bucmgmilh9ul9ogmiku5legh5 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Timothy N. Cason & Lata Gangadharan, 2022. "Gender, Beliefs, and Coordination with Externalities Approach," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1330, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    6. Laura Cruz-Castro & Clara Casado & Luis Sanz-Menéndez, 2025. "Merit, competition and gender: scientific promotion in public research organisations," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, December.
    7. Bukstein, Daniel & Gandelman, Néstor, 2019. "Glass ceilings in research: Evidence from a national program in Uruguay," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1550-1563.
    8. Laura Hospido & Carlos Sanz, 2019. "Gender gaps in the evaluation of research: evidence from submissions to economics conferences (Updated March 2020)," Working Papers 1918, Banco de España, revised Mar 2020.
    9. Bransch, Felix & Kvasnicka, Michael, 2022. "Male Gatekeepers: Gender Bias in the Publishing Process?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 714-732.
    10. Filandri, Marianna & Pasqua, Silvia & Priori, Eleonora, 2023. "Breaking through the glass ceiling. Simulating policies to close the gender gap in the Italian academia," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Maria De Paola & Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2018. "Are Men Given Priority for Top Jobs? Investigating the Glass Ceiling in Italian Academia," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(3), pages 475-503.
    12. Cason, Timothy N. & Gangadharan, Lata & Grossman, Philip J., 2022. "Gender, beliefs, and coordination with externalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    13. Laura Hospido & Carlos Sanz, 2021. "Gender Gaps in the Evaluation of Research: Evidence from Submissions to Economics Conferences," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(3), pages 590-618, June.
    14. Pierre Deschamps, 2018. "Gender Quotas in Hiring Committees: a Boon or a Bane for Women?," SciencePo Working papers hal-03393117, HAL.
    15. Friederike Mengel & Jan Sauermann & Ulf Zölitz, 2019. "Gender Bias in Teaching Evaluations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 535-566.
    16. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas Augusto van der Velde & Magdalena Smyk, 2024. "Gender-neutral hiring of junior scholars," GRAPE Working Papers 94, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    17. Daniele Checchi & Silvia Poli & Enrico Rettore, 2018. "Does Random Selection of Selectors Improve the Quality of Selected Candidates? An Investigation in the Italian Academia," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 4(2), pages 211-247, July.
    18. D. Checchi & S. Cicognani & N. Kulic, 2015. "Gender quotas or girls networks? Towards an understanding of recruitment in the research profession in Italy," Working Papers wp1047, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    19. Gürerk, Özgür & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rockenbach, Bettina, 2017. "Endogenously Emerging Gender Diversity in an Experimental Team Work Setting," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168067, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. SeEun Jung & Radu Vranceanu, 2017. "Gender Interaction in Teams: Experimental Evidence on Performance and Punishment Behavior," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 33, pages 95-126.
    21. De Paola, Maria & Gioia, Francesca & Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2022. "Female leadership: Effectiveness and perception," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 134-162.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:3:p:462-482. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.