{"id":210,"date":"2014-10-01T11:54:06","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T11:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/management\/?p=210"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:21:11","slug":"incentives-alone-wont-bring-gender-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/2014\/10\/01\/incentives-alone-wont-bring-gender-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"Incentives alone won\u2019t bring gender equality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doris Ruth Eikhof*, Senior Lecturer in Work and Employment at the School, underlines why there\u2019s so much more to the problem of gender inequality than the task of getting the incentives right<\/em><\/p>\n

Those concerned about gender inequality have recently been given cause for optimism. Research in economics, according to Tyler Cowen\u2019s New York Times <\/em>upshot column<\/a>, ispredicting \u2018a better world to come\u2019. Cowen concedes women \u2018are perceived as easier to take advantage of in [\u2026] economic settings\u2019 and they \u2018participate less in many public settings, especially those in which real power is exercised.\u2019 Nevertheless, drawing on recent economic research, Cowen confidently pronounces \u2018once women achieve a critical mass in a particular area, their participation grows rapidly\u2019. Women have, he continues, \u2018made great strides\u2019 in law, medicine and academia, promising \u2018cycles of positive reinforcement\u2019 will further level the gender playing field. Cowen\u2019s optimism is as much rooted in findings from recent economics research (\u2018incentives matter and [\u2026] can be changed\u2019) as they are in John Stuart Mill\u2019s gender-equity predictions<\/a>. These, of course, were made a mere 150 years ago. Time sure flies when you\u2019re having it all.<\/p>\n

Cowen is notably vague about which incentives towards gender equality he has in mind. The real devil of economic arguments like his is in the detail, buried in assumptions, footnotes and subordinate clauses. So immediately following the suggestion that once a critical mass of female participation is reached, gender equality becomes the natural destination, Cowen states, by way of a mere afterthought, \u2018at least after basic norms of inclusion have been established.\u2019 But just what are those basic norms? And just how might they be established? Cowen does not say. Perhaps this omission is a mere technicality from a behavioral economic perspective. Perhaps, but these basic norms just so happen to be the crux of an incentive-led approach to gender equality. The establishment of basic norms, in other words, is precisely the problem.<\/p>\n

Today we have many Gender Equality Acts<\/em> but, as the most recent Global Gender Gap Report<\/a> revealed once more, we still do not have Gender Equality. The norms codified in those Acts are not<\/em> established, neither in the workplace nor in society. Gendered perceptions of individual\u2019s characteristics, as the Ban Bossy campaign<\/a> has demonstrated, and as Cowen himself concedes, still disadvantage women. Ongoing research also demonstrates<\/a> how gendered perceptions of entrepreneurship reproduce gender inequality, how cultures of presenteeism discriminate<\/a> against those with caring commitments (mostly women) and how the knowledge economy\u2019s reliance<\/a> on personal network based recruitment places women at a disadvantage<\/a>. Across many industries, overt and covert sexist behaviour remains the norm. Academic studies of engineering<\/a> or management<\/a> are popularly reinforced by initiatives such as the Everyday Sexism<\/a> project.<\/p>\n

These are precisely the sorts of issues which Cowen\u2019s qualification about basic norms confines to the background. Yes, it is possible to change incentives and yes, cycles of positive reinforcement can play a part. But the reason that, over 150 years after Mill\u2019s essay, we still face profound gender inequality in developed and developing economies is that basic norms of inclusion still get pushed to background. If we don\u2019t address those norms, the gender gap might, as Cowen puts it, \u2018eventually close\u2019. Such optimism should come with a use by date.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* Doris Ruth Eikhof also writes for the American Sociological Association’s Work in Progress blog<\/a>, where some of her work for the Management Is Too Important Not To Debate<\/em>\u00a0blog is cross-posted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doris Ruth Eikhof*, Senior Lecturer in Work and Employment at the School, underlines why there\u2019s so much more to the problem of gender inequality than the task of getting the incentives right Those concerned about gender inequality have recently been given cause for optimism. Research in economics, according to Tyler Cowen\u2019s New York Times upshot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[521,517,518,519,520,523,522,428,507,516,508,515,511,509,512,466,524,525,514,510,513],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ban-bossy-campaign","tag-behavioural-economics","tag-caveats","tag-cycles-of-reinforcement","tag-discrimination","tag-engineering","tag-everyday-sexism","tag-gender","tag-gender-equality","tag-gender-gap","tag-gender-inequality","tag-global-gender-gap-report","tag-incentives","tag-inequality","tag-john-stuart-mill","tag-knowledge","tag-knowledge-economy","tag-knowledge-work","tag-new-york-times","tag-sexism","tag-tyler-cowen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}