WEB DESK (VOICE): A significant barrier women face in male-dominated fields, such as science and engineering, is balancing work and family responsibilities. Although work-family conflict is not a problem unique to these industries, it is amplified by long work hours and high demands.
To address these challenges, organizations are increasingly offering family benefits, such as extended parental leave. Industries such as finance and technology in the US and financial services in the UK are leading the way in offering generous parental leave policies.
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However, such policies can have a paradoxical effect: despite their positive intention to attract women to male-dominated jobs, they can unintentionally harm employment. women’s careers by reinforcing rather than resolving inequalities.
By comparison, recent research suggests that men may not face negative penalties after taking parental leave. Furthermore, taking time off to care for children is associated with positive impressions of men.
Our recent research shows that women who take longer leaves in male-dominated industries can face penalties, including lower wages and limited advancement opportunities.
Enabling organizations to understand the unintended negative consequences of such policies and combat them with initiatives that can help working mothers is critical to achieving their aspirations. equity expectations that leading companies espouse.
Women are often seen as highly communal, characterized by traits such as warmth and compassion, while men are seen as highly impactful, associated with dedication and ambition. in career.
Agentic qualities are often considered essential in male-dominated professions, and these gender stereotypes create a mismatch between the characteristics common to women and the agentic qualities valued in these professions.
To advance in these fields, women must demonstrate agency. However, taking parental leave – a powerful communal act – can undermine women’s perceptions of agency, with longer leave exacerbating doubts about commitment. their commitments and ambitions.
In contrast, these negative effects may not be present in female-dominated industries such as education and health care, where common characteristics are more closely tied to the skills and values needed to succeed. labour. In such fields, parental leave is less likely to harm women’s wages or career progression.
We conducted three studies of parental leave policy in Australia using mixed methods, including archival data and empirical research.
Our first study used archival data from 2001 to 2013 from the Household, Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey published by the Melbourne Institute. Our findings show that longer parental leave is associated with lower post-leave earnings for women in male-dominated occupations. No such relationship was observed for women in female-dominated or gender-neutral occupations, such as food trading and gardening.
Our second study replicated these findings using an experimental design with 311 Australian workers. For women applying for male-dominated positions, taking 12 months of parental leave (vs. one month) resulted in a lower salary offer. A 12-month leave period is standard and commonly used in Australia. This effect was not observed for women applying to female-dominated jobs.
Our third study tested the underlying explanations for these results using another experiment with 163 workers and students in Australia. The results showed that longer parental leave had a negative impact on women’s perceptions of agency, which in turn influenced salary recommendations. Taking longer leaves will negatively impact leadership performance evaluations and the ability to advance into management roles.
The negative outcomes of longer parental leave in the second and third studies were consistent regardless of evaluator gender.
However, our study has limitations. Due to the nature of the HILDA data, our findings primarily reflect results for white, cisgender, and heterosexual women. Future research should examine the impact of parental leave policies in more diverse racial and gender contexts to promote inclusivity in research and the knowledge it generates.
Parental leaves – especially the longer leaves – are important for both women’s health and career development. Longer brood leaves are associated with improved health outcomes for mothers and infants.
Parental leave plays an important role in helping women continue working and return after having children. Therefore, parental leave is essential to support maternal and infant health while reducing women’s absenteeism and workforce attrition.
However, if not managed effectively, parental leave can unintentionally harm women’s careers, especially in fields where they are underrepresented. Just having a policy is not enough; It is equally important to ensure women are fully supported as they return to work.
At a minimum, managers and decision makers must recognize that women may face biased assessments after taking leave, even if their qualifications and performance are up to par. with colleagues who have not yet taken leave.
Organizations should implement policies and practices that support mothers as they return to work. For example, staying in touch programs can help women stay connected to the workplace while on leave. Such programs could increase awareness of women’s agency and minimize the potential negative impact of extended leave.
More broadly, promoting allyship among men in male-dominated workplaces is essential. Men’s allies can address the career challenges of women taking parental leave and reduce the detrimental effects of underrepresentation, especially in STEM fields, by promoting promote inclusion and respect for women.
While male-dominated industries often lead the way in offering generous parental leave policies to attract and retain women, these same policies can unintentionally hinder employment. women’s long-term career success and hinder gender equality in these fields. This negative effect is not observed in occupations dominated by women.
Male-dominated industries often prioritize agentic characteristics – such as long work hours and rigidity – over flexibility and inclusivity, which adversely affects both women and men. men. This emphasis on agentic characteristics can persist even when high competence and performance are evident.
To address this problem, organizations must cultivate leadership, culture, and norms that value shared characteristics as well as agentic characteristics.
Research into the firefighting profession – a traditionally male-dominated field – demonstrates that such cultural changes are possible. Equally emphasizing both the agentic and communal characteristics of the profession will foster a culture that is more accepting of women. This rebalancing not only diversifies the sector but also redefines success in a more comprehensive way.
One way for organizations to shift their culture to value more community is to measure and evaluate the common aspects of a person’s performance. That is, organizations and managers will need to redefine what success looks like and what needs to be measured to evaluate a person’s performance.
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Ultimately, meaningful cultural change in male-dominated industries is essential to create workplaces that are more inclusive, balanced, and support more diverse talent.