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Title: Women's Descriptive Representation and the Labor Market: Lowered Expectations of Discrimination and Increased Likelihood of Applying to Jobs

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2020

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Abstract: Research shows that descriptive representation can improve political outcomes. We demonstrate that perceptions of how politically represented “people like you” are can also change attitudes and basic welfare-enhancing behavior among members of an historically marginalized group. We experimentally demonstrate that women’s likelihood of applying to jobs increases both when they are aware of the increased number of women in Congress after the 2018 midterm elections, and when information about women’s political representation is framed positively rather than negatively. We also find that Democratic women are significantly more likely to expect discrimination when applying to jobs than Republican women. It follows that Democratic women are positively affected when it comes to applying to jobs that are seen as discriminatory towards women, such as male-stereotyped jobs, while Republican women react to treatment by applying to more jobs in general. Pre-treatment moderators, like modern sexism, collective self-esteem, feelings of marginalization, and age help to explain these results. Finally, we find that while our treatments positively affect both white and non-white Democratic women’s likelihood of applying to jobs, they only positively affect white Republican women, suggesting the importance of considering the intersectionality of race and party when examining the effects of increases in women’s descriptive representation.

Url: https://csdp.princeton.edu/sites/csdp/files/media/westduell.pdf

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Authors: West, Emily A; Duell, Dominik

Publisher: Princeton

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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