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Disparate Impact? Career Disruptions and COVID-19 Impact Statements in Tenure Evaluations

By on August 13, 2024 in Articles

Lauren A. Rivera, Katherine Weisshaar, András Tilcsik

Sociological Science August 13, 2024
10.15195/v11.a23

Abstract

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Extensive research reveals employer biases against workers with career disruptions, particularly those related to caregiving. However, the effectiveness of organizational practices intended to mitigate such biases is less well understood. This study examines the use of COVID-19 impact statements in tenure decisions at research universities, an organizational intervention that was designed to reduce biases but raised concerns that it might inadvertently amplify them. Contrary to concerns about unintended consequences, a pre-registered survey experiment with 602 full professors in STEM fields reveals that the inclusion of impact statements leads to more favorable tenure evaluations, regardless of faculty gender and disruption type. Qualitative evidence suggests that perceptions of pandemic-related disruptions as legitimate, externally imposed, time-limited events in the past help circumvent previously documented biases. This study enhances our understanding of organizational practices that effectively mitigate biases and points to the potential role of narrative framing in workplace evaluations and organizational inequalities.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Lauren A. Rivera: Department of Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
E-mail: L-rivera@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Katherine Weisshaar: Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
E-mail: kate.weisshaar@northwestern.edu

András Tilcsik: Department of Strategic Management, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
E-mail: andras.tilcsik@rotman.utoronto.ca

Acknowledgements: We are deeply grateful to Jeannette Colyvas for formative discussions about COVID-19 impact statements. We also thank Anne Bowers, Clayton Childress, Stefan Dimitriadis, Laura Doering, Alicia Eads, Angelina Grigoryeva, Ryann Manning, Santiago Campero Molina, Sida Liu, Katherine Spoon, the Toronto Group of Seven, participants at the International Conference on Science of Science and Innovation, and seminar participants at the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies, Stanford University, and Columbia University for useful feedback on early drafts.

Supplemental Material

Replication Package: Deidentified survey data and the code needed to replicate the findings are available at https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/UAM9PJ.

  • Citation: Rivera, Lauren A., Katherine Weisshaar, and András Tilcsik. 2024. “Disparate Impact? Career Disruptions and COVID-19 Impact Statements in Tenure Evaluations. Sociological Science 11: 626-648.
  • Received: May 13, 2024
  • Accepted: June 17, 2024
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Kristen Schilt
  • DOI: 10.15195/v11.a23


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Gender Flexibility, but not Equality: Young Adults’ Division of Labor Preferences

By on January 21, 2020 in Articles

Brittany N. Dernberger, Joanna R. Pepin

Sociological Science January 21, 2020
10.15195/v7.a2

Abstract
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Rising acceptance of mothers’ labor force participation is often considered evidence of increased support for gender equality. This approach overlooks perceptions of appropriate behavior for men and gender dynamics within families. We use nationally representative data of 12th-grade students from Monitoring the Future surveys (1976 to 2014) to evaluate changes in youths’ preferred division of labor arrangements. Over this period, contemporary young people exhibited greater openness to a variety of division of labor scenarios for their future selves as parents, although the husband-as-earner/wife-as-homemaker arrangement remained most desired. Using latent class analysis, we identify six configurations of gender attitudes: conventionalists, neotraditionalists, conventional realists, dual earners, intensive parents, and strong intensive parents. There are no gender egalitarian configurations—exhibiting equal support for both parents’ time at work and time at home. Our findings indicate researchers must distinguish between adoption of gender egalitarian principles and gender flexibility in dividing time at work and at home.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Brittany N. Dernberger: Department of Sociology, University of Maryland
E-mail: bdernber@terpmail.umd.edu

Joanna R. Pepin: Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
E-mail: JPepin@prc.utexas.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank Kelly Raley, Melissa Milkie, Philip Cohen, and Sarah Flood for generously reading previous versions and providing invaluable feedback. This article was presented at the University of Maryland’s Gender,Work, and Family/Stratification working group, the Family Demography working group at the University of Texas, and at the 2018 American Sociological Association’s annual conference. We thank all the audience participants for their thoughtful comments. Replication code for data access and all paper analyses are available at https://osf.io/m3xwy/.

This research was supported by grant P2CHD042849, Population Research Center, and grant T32HD007081, Training Program in Population Studies, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin; and grant P2CHD041041, Maryland Population Research Center, awarded to the University of Maryland, by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Dernberger, Brittany N., and Joanna R. Pepin. 2020. “Gender Flexibility, but not Equality: Young Adults’ Division of Labor Preferences.” Sociological Science 7: 36-56.
  • Received: November 20, 2019
  • Accepted: December 14, 2019
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a2


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