Gendered Work: Onset and Consequences with Lise Vesterlund

All organizations have tasks that no one wants to do—whether it’s planning the office party, serving on a committee, or handling routine administrative tasks. From office "housework" to more important assignments, the work that goes unrewarded is more often handled by women than by men. In this talk, Lise Vesterlund—WAPPP research fellow and Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh—will present recent research on how and when gendered work arises. She will also explore how differences in assignments affect evaluation, compensation, and career advancement. 

Lise Vesterlund is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research aims to understand why men continue to be more successful than women in climbing the corporate ladder. She has demonstrated systematic gender differences in behavior when deciding whether to enter a competition or a negotiation, or when asked to perform a non-promotable task. In uncovering the drivers of these differences her work points to mechanisms that can be put in place to secure that the best qualified candidates are those promoted. She is the director of the Behavioral Economics Design Initiative (BEDI) and co-author of The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women's Dead-End Work.