Safety Concerns Create Gender Disparities in Opportunies

New research from CSMRE faculty affiliate, Jennifer Doleac, and her colleagues examines the impact of workplace safety concerns among women working in academia. In Study 1, the research team collected data from 5 samples, resulting in a sample of over 1800 people. Results showed that women expressed more safety concerns than men did. As a result, they spent less time in libraries, offices, and labs after hours. The researchers then followed up this study with another one. Here, they experimentally manipulated safety concerns in a sample of men, showing that as concerns increased, the men’s time in the library decreased. In the third study, the researchers used archival sources, looking at card swipe access data. Campus crime events that would heighten safety concerns for women were linked with fewer women working after hours, and fewer women STEM faculty working in their labs into the evening. The authors concluded that “these data suggest that women’s safety concerns can restrict their work.”

Trawalter, S., Doleac, J., Palmer, L., Hoffman, K., & Carter-Sowell, A. (2021). Women’s safety concerns and academic: How safety concerns create opportunity gaps. Available at: http://jenniferdoleac.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TrawalterEtAl_SPPS.pdf.