Gender Bias does not exist anymore, and even if it does it has no bearing on the hiring and recruitment decisions. I hear this a lot during my work as a diversity and inclusivity consultant, and as the founder of the research think-tank ‘The 50 Percent Project’. A recent research study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, however, has shown that implicit gender bias affects the promotion and hiring of women.
A new study by a UBC psychologist, Toni Schmader, and researchers in France reveals that hiring committees who denied it is a problem were less likely to promote women. “Our evidence suggests that when people recognize women might face barriers, they are more able to put aside their own biases,” said Schmader, Canada Research Chair in social psychology. Although there have been many studies carried out before that have shown how implicit biases affect women in the workplace, and I have written about some of these in previous articles, this study is unique in that findings were based on actual decisions made by 40 hiring committees in France, charged with filling elite research positions with the National Committee for Scientific Research (CNRS) for two consecutive years.
The researchers first measured how strongly the hiring committee members associated science with men. Traditionally, and even today, there is a huge gender bias in STEM. I have given numerous keynotes at STEM Women events and women face stereotypes and biases in science and technology. In my work with schools, it is clear that these stereotypes start forming very young.
The researchers measure this using an Implicit Association Test (IAT) that was developed at Harvard. There have been concerns about how accurate these test results are, and whether this test really measures implicit and unconscious biases. However, this test is popular and effective in giving a sense of the implicit associations we might carry. In the test, words flash on a computer screen and measurements are made of how quickly participants are able to assign those words to a particular category. People who make a strong association between men and science have to think a bit longer and react more slowly when challenged to pair female-related words with science concepts. The study showed that not only men but also women show a strong association between science and male, as compared to science and female. This shows that when there are not many role models, then such implicit stereotypes persist and are continuously reinforced.
The panelists and members of the hiring and evaluative committees were also given a separate questionnaire where they were asked whether women are discriminated against in the STEM domain and whether their career progression and recruitment is impacted upon by other issues such as work-life balance and family commitments. It was found that some hiring committees from these 40 cases minimized these issues, and did not consider them important, while others acknowledge that women face certain disadvantages.
It was most interesting to see the correlation between these implicit beliefs and the actual hiring outcomes. The researchers found that the the committees that were more aware of the barriers that women face were more likely, and keen, to overcome their implicit associations that science is predominantly a male domain, when selecting candidates for the job. On the other hand, the committees that had shown a strong belief that science is not sexist, and no gender bias exists, were less likely to promote and recruit women.
This study has shown that it is really important for hiring committee members to have adequate training in biases and stereotypes, and be aware of tips and strategies that can help them ensure that any implicit biases they carry do not affect their hiring decisions.
My work with organizations of different sizes in the STEM domain have also shown that representation matters. If we do not see role models of all genders, then it is more likely that minority groups will continue to face discrimination even at the hiring stage. This results in fewer role models, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
