Does the Gender Composition of Scientific Committees Matter?

Manuel Bagues, Mauro Sylos-Labini () and Natalia Zinovyeva

No 9199, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: An increasing number of countries are introducing gender quotas in scientific committees. We analyze how a larger presence of female evaluators affects committee decision-making using information on 100,000 applications to associate and full professorships in all academic disciplines in two countries, Italy and Spain. These applications were assessed by 8,000 evaluators who were selected through a random draw. A larger number of women in evaluation committees does not increase either the quantity or the quality of female candidates who qualify. If anything, when evaluators' are not familiar with candidates' research area, gender-mixed committees tend to be less favorable towards female candidates than all-male committees, with the exception of evaluations to full professorships in Spain. Data from 300,000 individual voting reports suggests that men become less favorable towards female candidates as soon as a woman joins the committee.

Keywords: scientific committees; gender discrimination; randomized natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dem, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published in: American Economic Review, 2017, 107 (4), 1207–1238

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Journal Article: Does the Gender Composition of Scientific Committees Matter? (2017)
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