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Can Design Changes Help Eliminate Gender Inequality?
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Harvard behavioral economist Iris Bohnet argues that, despite all the effort put into equality training programs, methods to eliminate sexism from the workplace just haven't worked.
What would work better, she argues, are design changes that could remove sexism from the system entirely.
Guest
Iris Bohnet, behavioral economic professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, where she directs the Women And Public Policy Program. Her new book is "What Works: Gender Equality By Design."
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The Wall Street Journal: Real Fixes For Workplace Bias
- "Consider a small design innovation that has transformed symphony orchestras in the U.S.: a curtain to shield auditioning musicians from the evaluation committee. This has helped judges to focus on the music played instead of what the musician looks like, as Claudia Goldin of Harvard and Cecilia Rouse of Princeton showed in a paper for the American Economic Review (2000). Curtains increased by 50% the likelihood that women advanced to future rounds of tryouts. Today, almost 40% of musicians at major American orchestras are female, a contrast to the 1970s, when curtains were seldom used and women made up only about 5% to 10% of musicians."
This segment aired on April 8, 2016.