Title: Committee Quotas and Gender Gap in Recruitment: A Lab Experiment
Room: E28
Time: 12:30
Abstract: Committee quotas have been introduced during the last years for combatting the underrepresentation of women in male-stereotyped environments. This paper provides experimental evidence on the effect of the committees’ gender composition on female candidates’ probabilities of success in recruitment processes. I designed a laboratory experiment in which groups of three subjects jointly select two candidates in a pool of six to perform a task. I found that male-majority committees were the most beneficial for female candidates while female-majority committees were the most detrimental. I also propose a mechanism based on the gender differences in group dynamics that could explain this counter-intuitive result. In terms of voice and influence, I found that men and women behave similarly in male-majority committees. In female-majority committees, however, men are more influential than women and disproportionately proposed to recruit only male candidates. The paper suggests that more women in recruitment committees do not necessarily benefit female candidates, what question the effectiveness of this policy.