Sunday, May 1, 2022

Following an incident of misconduct, female financial advisers are 20% more likely to lose their jobs and 30% less likely to find new jobs; gap is not driven by gender differences in occupation, productivity, nature of misconduct, or recidivism

When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct. Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos, and Amit Seru. Journal of Political Economy, Apr 2022. https://doi.org/10.1086/718964

Abstract: We examine gender differences in misconduct punishment in the financial advisory industry. There is a “gender punishment gap”: following an incident of misconduct, female advisers are 20% more likely to lose their jobs and 30% less likely to find new jobs, relative to male advisers. The gender punishment gap is not driven by gender differences in occupation, productivity, nature of misconduct, or recidivism. The gap in hiring and firing dissipates at firms with a greater percentage of female managers and executives. We also explore the differential treatment of ethnic minority men and find similar patterns of “in-group” tolerance.


Combining data from exams taken at Swedish military enlistment with earnings records from the tax register, we document an increase in the relative labor market return to logical reasoning skill as compared to vocabulary knowledge

Labor Market Returns and the Evolution of Cognitive Skills: Theory and Evidence Get access Arrow. Santiago Hermo, Miika Päällysaho, David Seim, Jesse M Shapiro. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, qjac022, Apr 19 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac022

Abstract: A large literature in cognitive science studies the puzzling “Flynn effect” of rising fluid intelligence (reasoning skill) in rich countries. We develop an economic model in which a cohort’s mix of skills is determined by different skills’ relative returns in the labor market and by the technology for producing skills. We estimate the model using administrative data from Sweden. Combining data from exams taken at military enlistment with earnings records from the tax register, we document an increase in the relative labor market return to logical reasoning skill as compared to vocabulary knowledge. The estimated model implies that changes in labor market returns explain 37 percent of the measured increase in reasoning skill, and can also explain the decline in knowledge. An original survey of parents, an analysis of trends in school curricula, and an analysis of occupational characteristics show evidence of increasing emphasis on reasoning as compared to knowledge.

JEL J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor ProductivityJ31 - Wage Level and Structure; Wage DifferentialsO52 - Europe


Individual factors, particularly low status, and social forces, such as a high degree of status inequality, female empowerment, and the ease of coordination through social media, give rise to misogynistic extremism

Lindner, Miriam. 2022. “Alone Together and Angry: Misogynistic Extremism as Coalitional Bargaining for Sexual Access.” PsyArXiv. April 30. doi:10.31234/osf.io/pve8u

Abstract: Mass shooters, violent extremists, and terrorists, who are overwhelmingly male, exhibit misogynistic attitudes and a history of violence against women. Over the past few years, incels (“involuntary celibates”) have gathered in online communities to discuss their frustration with sexual/romantic rejection, espouse male supremacist attitudes, and justify violence against women and men who are more popular with women. Despite the link between misogyny and mass violence, and the recent emergence of online misogynistic extremism, theories and empirical research on misogynistic extremism remain scarce. I apply theorizing on the function of coalitional aggression as one of bargaining over collective conflicts of interest to the domain of sexual aggression and explore how sexual rejection can be framed as a grievance and make violence attractive. I show how individual factors, particularly low status, and social forces, such as a high degree of status inequality, female empowerment, and the ease of coordination through social media, give rise to misogynistic extremism.



The Gendered Consequences of Risk-Taking at Work: No evidence for overall gender differences in initial risk-taking

The Gendered Consequences of Risk-Taking at Work: Are Women Averse to Risk or to Poor Consequences? Thekla Morgenroth, Michelle K. Ryan, Cordelia Fine. Psychology of Women Quarterly, April 18, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843221084048

Abstract: Women are seen as more risk-avoidant in the workplace, and some have argued that this contributes to occupational gender gaps. Across two correlational and three experimental studies (total N = 2280), we examined the role of consequences of workplace risk-taking in determining the likelihood of taking future risks at work. We found no evidence for overall gender differences in initial risk-taking, and women and men anticipated similar consequences for risks with which they have no experience. However, this stands in contrast to the consequences of risk-taking they have experienced. Here, men reported on average more positive consequences, even for those risks that are more normative for women, translating into a higher likelihood of taking the same risks again. When faced with the same consequences, women and men were equally likely to take the same risks again. Our findings challenge the simple assumption that women are averse to workplace risks and suggest that if and when women do avoid risks, it is because their risk-taking leads to less rewarding consequences. Workplace gender equality initiatives should therefore tackle any inequities of consequences rather than encouraging women to “lean in” and take more risks. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843221084048.

Keywords: risk-taking, risk-aversion, gender, gender differences, workplace gender equality


Warfare among foragers who lived among foragers and were not subject to control by a state: Conflict occurred on all scales ranging from small-scale raids to battles involving hundreds of warriors on each side; large-scale conflict caused many casualties and much mortality; larger scale conflict was more common between members of different ethnolinguistic or tribal groups than within such groups

Large-scale cooperation in small-scale foraging societies. Robert Boyd, Peter J. Richerson. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews. April 29 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21944

Abstract: We present evidence that people in small-scale mobile hunter-gatherer societies cooperated in large numbers to produce collective goods. Foragers engaged in large-scale communal hunts and constructed shared capital facilities; they made shared investments in improving the local environment; and they participated in warfare, formed enduring alliances, and established trading networks. Large-scale collective action often played a crucial role in subsistence. The provision of public goods involved the cooperation of many individuals, so each person made only a small contribution. This evidence suggests that large-scale cooperation occurred in the Pleistocene societies that encompass most of human evolutionary history, and therefore it is unlikely that large-scale cooperation in Holocene food producing societies results from an evolved psychology shaped only in small-group interactions. Instead, large-scale human cooperation needs to be explained as an adaptation, likely rooted in distinctive features of human biology, grammatical language, increased cognitive ability, and cumulative cultural adaptation.

 5.2.4 Iñupiaq in northwestern Alaska

During the first half of the 19th 560 century, Iñupiaq groups in western Alaska conducted regular
 large-scale warfare against members of other Iñupiaq groups, Athabaskan speakers to the east, and
Chukchi people on the Asian side of the Bering Strait. Our knowledge of these events comes from
Iñupiaq ethnohistory collected by the anthropologist Ernest “Tiger” Burch100 563 who interviewed Iñupiaq elders about 19th 564 century Iñupiaq life, conflict and alliance. By collecting and collating many accounts of the same events, he was able to create a picture of Iñupiaq life before extensive contact with Europeans and North Americans.
The Iñupiaq economy was based on fishing and hunting large game, mainly caribou and marine
 mammals. They lived in villages during the fall and winter, and then moved to fishing and hunting camps in the spring and summer. Population densities were about 1 person per 20 square kilometers, at the low end of the forager range. Villages ranged in size from 8 to 160 people, but 80% had less than 32 people.
People were collected into territorial groups that Burch refers to as nations. In the region
around Kotzebue Sound there were 10 nations with an average population size of 470 people and
average territory size of 8600 km2.

Burch100:140 recorded accounts of 77 raids and battles that occurred in the first half of the 19th 574
century. Like other foraging groups, attackers preferred surprise, nighttime raids. These occurred mainly in the fall because low temperatures meant that people would be inside at night, frozen rivers made travel easier, and the lack of snow made it difficult to track retreating raiders. Raiding parties armed with bows, lances and knives travelled long distances, sometimes as much as 300km each way, and never less than 80km.
 
 Villages were centered around a community hall or qargi where men spent much of their evenings. Attackers hoped to surprise all the men in the qargi and kill them as they exited.
 If the raid was successful, attackers killed everybody in the village. Sometimes young women were taken as slaves, but usually they were raped, tortured and killed100:104 582
 The threat of raids prompted people to take defensive action. Some villages had defensive
 stockades, and others were surrounded by fields of sharpened caribou bones driven into the ground,
 much like the punji sticks used by Viet Cong fighters. They also built escape tunnels into the qargi.
Raiders were sometimes detected and ambushed themselves.

 Small villages could be attacked by  raiding parties numbering 10 or 20 warriors. However, Iñupiaq sometimes attacked larger villages, and this required much larger raiding parties. It was more difficult to feed a large war party during travel, and larger villages were harder to approach undetected, but nonetheless, raids on large villages did occur.

Burch gives detailed accounts of several large raids. For example, raiding party of 350−400 men attacked a village of about 600 people. The attackers wore camouflaged clothing and came bare593 footed to minimize the chance their approach would be heard. However, they were spotted, and the
 Point Hope villagers poured out and attacked the raiders who retreated onto a field studded with
 caribou spikes rendering many of them helpless. Their comrades fled leaving the injured to be killed by the defenders.

Sometimes the Iñupiaq engaged in large open battles. This could occur when a large raiding party was detected, but sometimes they took place when the animosity between two nations had reached a boiling point.

In open battles, the two sides formed battle lines with the best archers on the flanks. Then the two sides would exchange archery fire, sometimes for hours. If one side was getting the worst of it, they might sometimes flee, experiencing serious casualties. Sometimes the two  sides would close and engage in hand to hand combat armed with lances and knives.