GATE’s 9th annual research roundtable brought together a multidisciplinary group of established and emerging scholars from across the University of Toronto who have won research grants from GATE to support their work. The event allowed them to share their latest research, provided an opportunity to gain valuable feedback, and facilitated networking and connection. What did we learn?
- Both men and women value hostility-free workplaces; women additionally value inclusive workplaces that are free of sexual harassment. Having the option to work remotely mitigates concerns about workplace hostility, especially among women who work in environments where sexual harassment is more frequent.
- DEI supporters can sometimes turn into DEI resisters, a novel phenomenon known as a “DEI U-Turn”. DEI U-Turns among marginalized group members are often driven by negative encounters with DEI programs that cast doubt on their abilities and merit, like being discounted as a “diversity hire” in a company that has diversity-based hiring initiatives.
- Gender-specific beliefs about competition lead women to apply for lower-paying jobs because they perceive them as less competitive, challenging the myth that women simply prefer lower-paying jobs, and instead suggesting that women’s application choices are strategic responses to perceived competition. Changing these beliefs could help to mitigate gender disparities in earnings.
- Regulations aimed at eliminating the “pink tax”—the higher price tag for products marketed towards women and girls compared to equivalent products marketed towards men and boys— successfully reduce the cost of “female” goods but have the unintended consequence of increasing the price of gender-neutral and “male” goods. This ultimately means that all consumers end up spending more than they did before the legislation was introduced.
- Federal fair lending regulations designed to combat widespread sexual orientation discrimination in US mortgage markets effectively lower mortgage rates offered to same-sex co-borrowers. These regulations were most effective in states that lack state-level protections for same-sex borrowers and in counties where lenders have previously complied with anti-discrimination laws.
- Analysis of a Swedish dataset reveals that immigrants who live in neighbourhoods with a higher proportion of non-immigrant inhabitants are more likely and quicker to participate in the stock market. Their interactions with natives may help overcome the informational and cultural barriers that typically block the path to this aspect of financial health.
- Personal interactions, or “touchpoints,” have the potential to both alleviate and exacerbate inequalities in markets.
- Racialized migrant women in Canada confront challenges such as poor housing and joblessness that damage their sense of agency and autonomy and have long-term consequences such as marital strife and delayed family reunification. These women often turn to community-based organizations as a haven from which to navigate and overcome these challenges.
- Gender (in)equality impacts car ownership in China’s auto market; higher levels of gender-equality as well as policy that reduced the gender-gap in education increased the market share of cars preferred by women and women’s car ownership overall.
- Resource constraints (e.g., wealth, land) have traditionally been understood to drive key decisions in micro-entrepreneurial contexts, however, sociocognitive and cultural factors also influence microentrepreneurs’ decisions about what they produce.
- When exposed to ineffective teaching, girls spend less time exploring and more time imitating than boys, making them less likely to discover the correct solution to a problem. Gender socialization might be to blame—girls are typically socialized to be “people-pleasers” who value relationships over independence and achievement.
- In traditional elections with single-choice voting (SCV), women and underrepresented minorities have lower chances of winning because voters worry about “throwing away” their vote. An alternative form of voting, ranked-choice voting (RCV), boosts their chances of winning by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference, empowering them to support candidates who seem unelectable under SCV.
- There is gender homophily in expert endorsements in mental health care such that therapists predominantly endorse other therapists who share their gender identity. More cross-gender endorsements can lead to greater take-up of therapy, especially among populations that underutilize therapy.
