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eCornell Keynote Progress toward gender equity in most industries — especially in leadership — continues to be disappointingly slow. While there are many blockers of progress, one particular hiring practice stands out: In informal hiring situations, managers will often devise a shortlist of potential hires. The informality of that shortlist — and the familiarity with candidates — reproduces implicit and systemic bias by its very informality. In short, hiring managers know people who look and think like them, and they are the people who typically get shortlisted and hired. Managers then end up missing out on the best talent available to them. New research by Professor Brian Lucas and a team at Cornell’s ILR School finds that when you make your shortlist longer to include more women, you reduce the risk of overlooking strong female candidates who may be better suited for the role than typical male shortlisters. Why deprive your organization of the best, most-qualified talent? Make your shortlist longer and you’ll not only make smarter hiring decisions, but you’ll also be helping to reduce systemic and implicit bias in your workplace. Minimal effort, maximal return.
Guo Xu, Berkeley Beyond the War: Public Service and the Transmission of Gender Norms This paper combines personnel records of the U.S. federal government with census data to study how shocks to the gender composition of an organization can persistently shift the gender norms of its workers. We exploit city-by-department variation in the sudden expansion of female clerical employment driven by America’s entrance into World War I, and find that daughters of civil servants exposed to female co-workers are more likely to work later in life, command higher income, and have fewer children. The effects are driven by exposed fathers and daughters in their teenage years at the time of exposure. We also show that cities exposed to a larger increase in female federal workers saw persistently higher female labor force participation in the public sector, as well as modest increases in private sector labor force participation. Collectively, the results are thus consistent with both the vertical and horizontal transmission of gender norms, and highlight how increasing gender representation within an organization can have broader labor market implications.
Join us in Ithaca to discuss the challenges to workers’ power posed by global supply chains and trade agreements, and the tools devised to address them, including new international instruments and global movements. This conference brings together labor activists, organizers, legal experts, and scholars to discuss how workers may build their power in a contemporary climate of liberalized trade, increasing interconnectivity, and global supply chains. Hear about efforts to advance an ILO standard on decent work in global supply chains, and learn about real-world developments from labor organizers in the Global south. See our full list of speakers here. Conference Co-Organizers: Desirée LeClercq (Cornell University) and Hila Shamir (Tel Aviv University) Sponsors: American Society of International LawCornell ILR Global Labor InstituteCornell International Law JournalFrank W. Pierce Memorial FundCornell Law School Tel Aviv University Exchange InitiativeMario Einaudi Center for International Studies
Ralf Ruckus will present central arguments from the book The Left in China. A Political Cartography (Pluto Press, 2023): All over the world, progressive forces debate the nature of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While some consider them to be socialist, others recognize the critical role of the current CCP government in facilitating capitalist exploitation and the suppression of social struggles. Often, little or no attention is given to leftwing oppositional movements and groups in the PRC. Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, changing class divisions have led to waves of social protests by workers, migrants, and women, which inspired several generations of leftwing opposition against CCP rule. The dialectic of social struggles and leftwing oppositional movements has shaped the history of the PRC, from the socialist build-up in the 1950s to the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the democracy movements in the 1970s and 1980s, the resistance of the socialist working class against capitalist restructuring in the 1990s and 2000s, and the struggles of migrant workers and women since. This event is co-sponsored by the East Asia Program.
Join us in Ithaca to discuss the challenges to workers’ power posed by global supply chains and trade agreements, and the tools devised to address them, including new international instruments and global movements. This conference brings together labor activists, organizers, legal experts, and scholars to discuss how workers may build their power in a contemporary climate of liberalized trade, increasing interconnectivity, and global supply chains. Hear about efforts to advance an ILO standard on decent work in global supply chains, and learn about real-world developments from labor organizers in the Global south. See our full list of speakers here. Conference Co-Organizers: Desirée LeClercq (Cornell University) and Hila Shamir (Tel Aviv University) Sponsors: American Society of International LawCornell ILR Global Labor InstituteCornell International Law JournalFrank W. Pierce Memorial FundCornell Law School Tel Aviv University Exchange InitiativeMario Einaudi Center for International Studies