Measuring female discrimination through language: a novel indicator and its effect on production efficiency in Italy

IF 4.6 3区 管理学 Q1 INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS & LABOR
M. Agovino, Michele Bevilacqua, Massimiliano Cerciello
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Abstract

PurposeWhile the economic literature mostly tackled discrimination looking at labour costs, this work focuses on its relation to labour productivity, arguing that discrimination may worsen the performance of female employees. In this view, it represents a source of allocative inefficiency, which contributes to reducing output.Design/methodology/approachFemale discrimination is both a social and an economic problem. In social terms, consolidated gender stereotypes impose constraints on women’s behaviour, worsening their overall well-being. In economic terms, women face generally worse labour market conditions. Using long-run Italian data spanning from 1861 to 2009, the authors propose a novel measure of female discrimination based on the observed frequency of discriminating epithets. Following social capital theory, the authors distinguish between structural and voluntary discrimination, and use Data Envelopment Analysis for time series data to assess the extent of inefficiency that each component of discrimination induces in the production process.FindingsThe results draw the trajectory of female discrimination in Italy and provide evidence in favour of the idea that female discrimination reduces productive efficiency. In particular, the structural component of female discrimination, although less sizeable than the voluntary component, plays a major role, especially in recent years, where more stringent beauty standards fuel looks-based discrimination.Originality/value The contribution of this work is twofold. First, based on contributions from social sciences different from economics, it proposes a novel theoretical framework that explores the effect of discriminatory language on labour productivity. Second, it introduces a novel and direct measure of female discrimination at the country level, based on the bidirectional link between language and culture. The indicator is easily understood by policymakers and may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-discrimination policies.
通过语言衡量女性歧视:一个新指标及其对意大利生产效率的影响
目的虽然经济文献主要从劳动力成本的角度来处理歧视问题,但这项工作侧重于其与劳动生产率的关系,认为歧视可能会恶化女性员工的表现。在这种观点中,它代表了配置效率低下的根源,这有助于减少产出。设计/方法/方法女性歧视既是一个社会问题,也是一个经济问题。在社会方面,性别陈规定型观念的巩固限制了妇女的行为,恶化了她们的整体福祉。在经济方面,妇女面临的劳动力市场条件普遍较差。作者利用1861年至2009年的意大利长期数据,根据观察到的歧视性形容词的频率,提出了一种新的女性歧视衡量标准。根据社会资本理论,作者区分了结构性歧视和自愿歧视,并对时间序列数据使用数据包络分析来评估歧视的每个组成部分在生产过程中引发的低效程度。研究结果绘制了意大利女性歧视的轨迹,并为女性歧视降低生产效率的观点提供了支持。特别是,女性歧视的结构性成分虽然不如自愿成分大,但发挥了重要作用,尤其是近年来,更严格的美容标准助长了基于外表的歧视。这项工作的贡献是双重的。首先,基于不同于经济学的社会科学的贡献,它提出了一个新的理论框架,探讨歧视性语言对劳动生产率的影响。其次,基于语言和文化之间的双向联系,介绍了一种新颖而直接的国家层面女性歧视措施。该指标易于决策者理解,可用于评估反歧视政策的有效性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
8.40
自引率
11.40%
发文量
80
期刊介绍: ■Employee welfare ■Human aspects during the introduction of technology ■Human resource recruitment, retention and development ■National and international aspects of HR planning ■Objectives of human resource planning and forecasting requirements ■The working environment
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