Sex Segregation in the Knowledge Economy: The Contrasting Effects of Passion Culture and Structural Empowerment

Date: 

Wednesday, January 29, 2020, 4:00pm to 5:30pm

Location: 

William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Room 1550

Trevor Young-Hyman, Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh

Given the persistent underrepresentation of women in occupations like tech and engineering, there is widespread interest in the factors that shape sex segregation in the knowledge economy. Extant research offers contrasting findings, with some studies suggesting that the cultural norms of the knowledge economy discourage women and other studies finding that the less hierarchical structures of knowledge economy firms present unique opportunities for women. In this paper, we argue that both dynamics operate on the supply-side of the labor market matching process. As firms emphasize cultural or structural elements of knowledge-intensive work in their recruitment efforts, they differentially attract men and women. On the cultural side, we focus on the norm of passion for work. This cultural norm deters women, first, by privileging stereotypically male behavior and, second, by emphasizing intrinsic over material rewards. On the structural side, we examine the prevalence of empowerment language in job postings, anticipating that descriptions of cross-functional teams and flat authority structures will uniquely attract women because they offer greater resource access and make decision-making more transparent. We test these claims with two data sources: job application data of graduating students at an elite United States university and a laboratory experiment where students evaluate imaginary jobs. In the field data, we use topic modeling to show that employers across industries and occupational categories use passion culture and structural empowerment language. We then show that job postings with structural empowerment language are more attractive to women than men, though passion culture language strongly attracts both men and women, counter to our expectation. Next, in the laboratory experiment, we find that male students express greater interest in jobs with high passion culture language, while female students express greater interest in jobs with high structural empowerment language. We also show, through the laboratory experiment, that concerns about fair treatment and rewards mediate these preferences for passion culture and structural empowerment.