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Kenan Institute 2023 Grand Challenge: Workforce Disrupted
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Market-Based Solutions to Vital Economic Issues

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The Kenan Institute recaps a panel on the business of women's health from the Center for Business of Health's November 2022 conference.

Research indicates that groups are most effective at achieving gender equity goals when men and women advocate together.

Research suggests that women negotiators tend to obtain worse outcomes than men; however, we argue this finding does not apply to all women. Integrating research on social hierarchies, gender in negotiations, and intersectional stereotype content, we develop a theoretical framework that explains the interactive effect of race and gender on offers and outcomes received in distributive negotiations.

We study the effect of government-subsidized childcare on women's career outcomes and firm performance using linked tax filing data. Exploiting a universal childcare reform in Quebec in 1997 and the variation in its timing relative to childbirth across cohorts of parents, we show that earlier access to childcare increases employment among new mothers, particularly among those previously unemployed.

Three institute-associated experts provided analysis for the July 30 edition of WRAL-TV’s “On the Record” news program. In a segment on dwindling child care options in the Raleigh area, Director of Research Paige Ouimet talked about how child care access affects the ability of women to work.

Workforce Disrupted

Seventeen states have enacted salary transparency laws to combat pay gaps historically experienced by people of color and women, but the laws take different forms and have produced varying results. How does requiring companies to provide summary salary statistics compare with, for example, preventing companies from asking applicants about their previous salaries? Can such laws actually work against employees? Two experts address these questions and more in this week’s Kenan Insight.

Why do firms offer non-wage compensation instead of the equivalent amount in financial compensation? We argue that firms use nonwage benefits, specifically female-friendly benefits, such as maternity leave, to increase gender diversity by efficiently attracting women.

With the school year winding down, we invited Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute Fellow and UNC-Chapel Hill Public Policy Research Professor Iheoma Iruka to join us for a discussion on the business of childcare and early education – as well as the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted families’ expectations and workers’ needs

Female involvement in the workforce remains important to the U.S. economy, but COVID-19 has only exacerbated a drop in participation rates. To reverse the trend, businesses are enhancing maternity leave, child care services and access to fertility and family-planning services, according to research by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School experts.

We examine the effect of pay transparency on gender pay gap and firm outcomes. This paper exploits a 2006 legislation change in Denmark that requires firms to provide gender disaggregated wage statistics. Using detailed employee-employer administrative data and a difference-in-differences and difference-in-discontinuities designs, we find the law reduces the gender pay gap, primarily by slowing the wage growth for male employees.

Firms continue to strive for greater representation on corporate boards. One California law, attempting to mandate such greater representation, has encountered a recent setback. Two experts discuss obstacles to more diverse corporate leadership and offer approaches for surmounting them.

On Tuesday, March 29th, First Citizens Bank Vice Chairwoman Hope Bryant joined UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Doug Shackelford for a fireside chat. Bryant discussed the history of First Citizens Bank, the impacts of COVID-19 on the workforce and her experiences as a woman in a leadership position.