Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1393415
49 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP Would women accept a gender pay gap if roles were reversed? 4 study findings By Hannah Mitchell W omen are just as likely as men to vote against a policy that shrinks the gender pay gap if the roles are reversed and men are the ones earning less, according to a study pub- lished in the journal of Applied Economics Letters. Marlon Williams, PhD, a researcher from the Uni- versity of Dayton (Ohio), conducted an experiment where he recruited participants to answer a 30-ques- tion quiz. ey would get paid based on the number of responses they answered correctly. In half of the sessions, the questions were written to give men an advantage by asking things on topics that surveys show men are more interested in than women, such as sports and certain movie genres. e other half of the sessions used a quiz designed to give women an advantage, according to a June 10 research brief on the study. Study participants were given three opportunities to vote to be paid $1 for each correctly answered ques- tion or to receive just 85 cents per correctly answered question and give the disadvantaged group $1.25 per correct answer. Four study findings: 1. In all voting sessions, women were more likely than men to vote against the policy that would have leveled the playing field and narrowed the pay gap. 2. On average, 96.8 percent of women's votes were against the proposed corrective payment policy, while 90.5 percent of men's votes were against the same policy. 3. When the women were disadvantaged, they voted in favor of the corrective policy more frequently than men (79.5 percent and 73 percent, respectively). 4. Pew Research data shows women make 84 cents on the dollar of what men earn. In a 2019 survey, 46 per- cent of men said men believe the gender pay gap is "made up" to serve a political purpose, rather than a legitimate compensation issue. e research suggests that self-interest could drive voters when making de- cisions on addressing the gender wage gap. n How Genentech is closing its leadership gender gap By Katie Adams I n 2007, men had five times more officer roles than women at Ge- nentech, and the biotech company's female directors were leaving twice as often as its male directors. Now, men and women have nearly equal representation among the company's workforce, includ- ing officer and director positions, according to a June 2 Harvard Busi- ness Review report. To achieve this, Genentech identified and eliminated factors hinder- ing women's advancement at the company. This required the com- pany to revise its processes for recruiting, professional development and succession planning. Below are four key lessons the company learned along the way, ac- cording to the report: 1. Data drives informed, effective plans to foster corporate gender equity. 2. Companywide accountability needs to be built into plans to foster corporate gender equity. 3. Small actions add up. 4. Change is meaningless unless it can be proved. n Feinstein's Dr. Lopa Mishra faces a new frontier in disease research By Lauren Jensik L opa Mishra, MD, is putting her years of disease research to use as the newly appointed co-director of the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine at The Feinstein Institutes in Manhasset, N.Y. "It's such an exciting new field," Dr. Mishra said. "Bioelectronic med- icine basically combines molecular medicine, neuroscience and biomed engineering. The whole goal is to take these innovative treatment strategies that have already worked in some areas, includ- ing paralysis and inflammatory bowel disease, to cancer." Dr. Mishra began her career studying liver diseases; she worked for famed hepatologist Sheila Sherlock, MD, after taking one of her courses in medical school at the University of London. "It was in those days, a lot of my patients had liver cancer, or alcoholic hepatitis or conditions that really led to end-stage liver disease. And a lot of my patients died. And I always wanted to make a difference to that," she said. At Feinstein, she and the Bioelectronic Medicine team plan to ex- plore the roles nerve pathways play in disease development, cancer in particular. "We're looking at really innovative approaches from mouse models to actual therapeutics targeting this. So in a year's time, we'd like to take this to clinical trial," she said. "I'm really looking forward to working on these new frontiers that our research has led to." n