Why Do So Few Women Hold Positions of Power?

Only 19 percent of U.S. congressional members, less than 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, and only two out of the current crop of U.S. presidential candidates are women. Clearly, “women are profoundly underrepresented in the United States in truly high-powered roles,” said IPR psychologist Alice Eagly at a recent IPR policy research briefing in Chicago. Before nearly 90 attendees, Eagly, IPR economist Lori Beaman, and Brigham Young political scientist Christopher Karpowitz dove into an interdisciplinary discussion of this issue and what might be possible to ensure that more women attain—and maintain—positions of power. MORE

Government's Public Policy Iceberg
Citizens are often unaware of “public-private” programs, even if they benefit from them, such as by receiving a government-sponsored home loan. They are also unaware of when they are being excluded from these programs, which is where citizens’ advocacy groups come in. In a recent journal article, political scientist and IPR associate Chloe Thurston examines the role that citizens’ advocacy groups—nongovernmental organizations that represent different groups of Americans, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or the American Legion—played in alerting their members to shortcomings of the Federal Housing Administration in 1934 and the early GI Bill in 1944. MORE

Beyond College Access to Success for Low-Income Students
In the United States, the unofficial education policy of “college-for-all” has succeeded in enrolling more students than ever in college. But only 20 percent of those who enroll in community college manage to get a bachelor’s degree, and low-income students with low test scores are even less likely to do so. Yet these students have options beyond traditional bachelor’s programs, said IPR education researcher James Rosenbaum in a recent colloquium. Rosenbaum and project coordinator Caitlin Ahearn have studied the benefits of “sub-baccalaureate” programs. MORE

Online Privacy? Beware of Posts Made from Your Home Computer
In 2015, 85 percent of Facebook users had accessed the social media site at some point from a mobile device. As mobile devices become more pervasive, the sheer amount of personal information that people share online is also skyrocketing. However, little is known about what this might mean for a person’s online privacy. IPR associate and communication studies researcher Eszter Hargittai and her co-author Jennifer Jiyoung Suh of the University of California, Santa Barbara address this gap in the research by investigating how a person’s privacy might be affected by the device they use for a Facebook post and the location from which they make the post. MORE

“Why Are Indian Children So Short? The Role of Birth Order and Son Preference” (WP-15-20)

Seema Jayachandran and Rohini Pande

Stunting due to malnutrition is widespread in India, such that Indian children are shorter than their counterparts in poorer regions like Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data on more than 174,000 children from demographic and health surveys, the researchers show that Indian firstborns are actually taller than African firstborns, and that the Indian height disadvantage emerges with the second child and then increases with birth order. Several factors suggest that the culture of eldest son preference underlies India's high rate of stunting: The Indian firstborn height advantage only exists for sons, and the drop-off varies with siblings' gender—as well as by religion and region within India—in ways consistent with the hope for a male heir determining Indian parents' fertility decisions and their allocation of resources among their children.

“The Effects of School Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reform” (WP-15-19)

Kirabo Jackson, Rucker Johnson, and Claudia Persico

The researchers link data on school spending and school finance reforms to detailed, nationally representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011, to see if children who were exposed to the reforms were more educated and more highly paid later in life. They find that a 10-percent increase in per-pupil spending each year for all 12 years of a child’s public school career leads to .27 more completed years of education, 7.25 percent higher wages, and a 3.67 percentage-point reduction in the annual incidence for adult poverty. These effects were much stronger for children from low-income families. They also find that increased school spending was associated with improvements in school quality, including reduced student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries, and longer school years.

“;The Effect of Wealth on Individual and Household Labor Supply: Evidence from Swedish Lotteries” (WP-15-18)

David Cesarini, Erik Linqvist, Matthew Notowidigdo, and Robert Östling

The researchers study a large sample of lottery players in Sweden and find that many of the lottery winners “spend” their winnings by working a little less. Interestingly, the winners reduce their work hours much more than their spouses, regardless of the winners’ gender. It seems like "who wins" in the household determines who gets to take it easier at their job. The researchers see very little evidence of early retirement upon winning, even for those who won large prizes.