October 18, 2021 – The economic theory of “pushing” affects everything from organ donation to 401 (k) plans, when automatic participation is the default option and we must actively choose to give up. And then the opposite is true, as you need to join in the “acceptance of cookies” on every website we visit.
“Bending” is the version for active involvement in the workplace and is offered as a way to reduce the gender gap in management positions. But new research shows that automatic inclusion in women may be more effective.
For this study, behavioral economists experimented with 1,598 women and men to see if a common recruitment process — stakeholder requests to apply or active involvement — would lead to differences in the way the sexes respond. Their results published inNotices of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that this typical way of doing business seems to favor men.
In these experiments, people were randomly assigned to one of two real job competition scenarios. One scenario reflects the usual practice of asking candidates to move forward or be actively involved. The second reversed the approach so that competing for a job was automatic unless the participant decided to give up.
With the “active inclusion” scenario, women were significantly less likely than men to compete for the job. But in the “default inclusion, active opt-out” scenario, women were just as likely as men to stay in the competition.
The experiments that the researchers performed in the laboratory showed a similar pattern. They found no shortcomings in the “default inclusion” approach to the performance or well-being of participants.
The results show that current recruitment and promotion practices benefit men, who are usually more accustomed to such competitions. “Making competition the default eliminates the often-observed gender differences in propensity to compete,” the authors say.
Choosing everyone who qualifies for promotion or competition can reduce the gender gap in leadership, the researchers write, noting that changing bias in the system can increase inclusion better than asking people to “lean” .