"The Role Played by Ambivalent Sexism
In the Motherhood Penalty and
Hiring Discrimination"
a Master's Thesis
by
Alynn Gordon with
Timothy Kennedy and
Hilary M. Lips, Ph.D. |
|
The goal of my psychology thesis was to explore factors
contributing to the motherhood penalty. Literature on the motherhood penalty
and gender-based hiring discrimination illustrates that women are more likely
than men to suffer disadvantages through pay allocation, hirability, and perceived job-related
skills. These already prominent disadvantages are shown to be exacerbated
when a woman indicates she is a parent; however, men do not seem to be
penalized for being parents. Previous literature focusing on these problems
explains that stereotypes are the reason for such differential treatment;
however, information which suggests an applicant is not a "typical" member
of their gender does not eradicate discrimination completely. Based on the
literature and previous findings, it was hypothesized that an individuals'
level of ambivalent sexism could be a contributing factor in this particular
occurrence. |
|
The experiment had individuals read resumes and
descriptions which were manipulated for gender and parental status; each
resume was for either a male or female parent or non-parent. Data was
collected in a computer laboratory on Radford University's campus and was
completed online by student participants. Participants were asked to read
the resume and description in order to evaluate the applicant on various
personal and work related traits. Participants were given several
questionnaires to answer including an established sexism inventory
(Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Glick & Fiske, 1996) and demographic
information. Researcher created questionnaires assessing the hirability,
likability, competence and salary allocation for the applicant were also
completed. |
|
Statistical analyses have not been completed. But thus far, respondents of each gender showed a
small tendency to rate members of the other gender higher on hirability
items, which could be due to the content of the resume. When evaluating
applicants, respondents may have remembered the resume as a whole, focusing
on the applicants' credentials, rather than the applicants' gender.
Respondents tended to view parent applicants as more likeable than nonparent
applicants, which may be due to our society's depiction of a parent as
someone who is kind and loving. Respondents tended to view parent applicants
as more competent than nonparent applicants. This finding is perhaps a
reflection of the idea that parents who work must be able to balance their
multiple roles successfully and are therefore more competent. Effect
of participant gender by applicant gender was observed where each gender
rated applicants of their own gender as more competent, which is most likely
due to in-group favoritism. All of these preliminary tendencies will be
revisited as the analyses continues. |
|
|
|
|
|