< Return to index
"IDEAL WORKERS" AND THE CONCEPT OF BIAS AVOIDANCE
Anne Bardeol* (co-authored with Carol Colbeck, Brian Cooper and Robert Drago)
Abstract
This study analyses bias avoidance behaviors, which arise when individuals minimize
or hide family commitments to achieve career success. Two types of bias avoidance behaviors are
identified. “Productive” avoidance behaviors occur when caregiving commitments are sacrificed in order
to improve work performance and meet the ideal worker norm. “Unproductive” bias
avoidance behaviors are behaviors that involve hiding or covering up caregiving
commitments, regardless of work performance, to enhance the appearance of
being an ideal worker. Using data from Chemistry and English faculty
from U.S. and Australian colleges and universities this study addresses three questions.
These are:
(a) are bias avoidance behaviours more common among women?,
(b) are bias avoidance behaviours more common in the U.S. or Australia?,
(c) is there an interaction between gender and country in reports of bias
avoidance behaviours?
Women are consistently more likely to deploy bias avoidance strategies than men.
However, men are not immune, and also reported high levels of unproductive
avoidance behaviors. The prevalence of bias avoidance behaviors suggest that the
need to keep up appearances and conform to the ideal worker norm is strong for professionals.
Introduction
The Boiled Frog Syndrome
If you put a frog in cold water and gradually heat it up it doesn’t
know it’s being boiled and is boiled to death. However, if you
throw a frog into boiling water it tries to jump out.
Combining work and care giving responsibilities is a challenge for many employed
men and women. Professionals such as doctors, lawyers and academics
increasingly expected to function as "ideal workers" who are extremely committed to
their jobs and require little time off (Bailyn, 1993; Williams, 2000). The ideal worker
norm creates a bias against caregiving in that it is often difficult to make or meet
family commitments in addition to extreme job responsibilities. Further, signals of
caregiving, even among highly productive employees, may be taken as indicators
that the employee is not serious, and hence should not enjoy promotions, pay
increases, or substantial assignments.
The hidden assumptions operating at the heart of the ideal worker norm lead many
people to feel like the boiled frog - that is, over time it is getting hotter and hotter but
just gradually enough that they are becoming habituated to working long hours,
spending part or most of every weekend at work, and not questioning whether this is
what a just society should demand of its professional employees.
Employees may respond to biases against caregiving by engaging in bias avoidance
behaviours (Drago and Colbeck, 2003), whereby individuals either deny themselves
opportunities to take on family commitments, or attempt to minimize or hide the
existence of family commitments to escape potential career penalties. Bias
avoidance strategies that free up more time and energy for a career are labeled
“productive.” Examples of productive bias behaviors include delaying marriage or
childbearing or limiting the number of children reared. There may also exist
“unproductive” bias avoidance behaviors which involve hiding or covering up
caregiving commitments, regardless of work performance implications. These
behaviors are often only loosely related to performance and include for example,
missing important events in a young child’s life in order to attend a meeting where
they might contribute little beyond being present or, somewhat differently, lying about
absenteeism for family reasons.
Drago and Colbeck (2003) found, for a sample of U.S. academic faculty, that bias
avoidance is pervasive and disproportionately effects women. Women may utilize
productive bias avoidance strategies more often because they continue to shoulder a
disproportionate share of child care and domestic duties; if men shared equally in
unpaid work in the home, they might exhibit elevated levels of productive bias
avoidance as well. However, women may use unproductive strategies more often
because they are more likely to experience bias against caregiving (i.e., women may
be viewed as less serious then men for equivalent expressions of caregiving
commitments).
In addition to the differences just mentioned, the prototypical career path for
academics in Australia is not as formalized as the tenure track system applied to
academics in U.S. colleges and universities. In the U.S. system, the individual
receives a Ph.D. and typically takes a full-time position as an assistant professor on
the tenure track, and can be released during this time with few penalties for the
institution.
At the beginning of the fifth year, the faculty member documents her or his
accomplishments, and these are reviewed by faculty at other institutions and at
various levels within the school. At the end of the academic year, the faculty member
is notified as to whether he or she will be promoted to the position of associate
professor with tenure, or will instead be released by the institution at the end of the
sixth year of employment.
The Australian academic does not have such a formalized process but in order to
reach tenure and be promoted Australian academics are judged on the same three
criteria of research, teaching and service, with an almost exclusive weight placed on
research at the Group of Eight Universities1, but with more weight on teaching
performance at the other universities. The analysis may therefore shed some light
on the effects of the relatively rigid tenure system in the U.S.
Using data from Chemistry and English faculty from U.S. and Australian colleges and
universities this study seeks to address three main research questions: (a) are bias
avoidance behaviours more common among women?, (b) are bias avoidance
behaviours more common in the U.S. or Australia?, and (c) is there an interaction
between gender and country in reports of bias avoidance behaviours?
Method
Sample and Procedure
The comparative data reported here are based on a national sample of 5,075 U.S.
academics conducted in 2001/2002 and a national sample of 232 Australian
academics conducted in 2004.
Characteristics of the samples. Table 1 presents selected demographic
characteristics of the two samples broken down by gender. Of the 5,075 U.S.
respondents, 39.0% were women, 58.3% men, and 2.7% of undisclosed gender. Of
the 232 Australian respondents, 41.4% were women, 56.9% were men, and 1.7% of
undisclosed gender. Less than one-quarter of the U.S. women and just over a third of
the Australian women were located in Chemistry departments. Although not shown in
the Table, in the U.S. sample, women comprised 23.6% of respondents in Chemistry
and 50.4% of respondents in English. The corresponding figures for the Australian
sample were 24.1% and 71.3%, respectively. Males are slightly older than women in both samples. In both samples, men are more likely to: hold tenure, be parents, and
be married or partnered. Australian men had the highest proportion of tenure (82.6%)
and U.S. women the lowest (55.0%). Higher rates of parenting were found in the
Australian sample, ranging from 40.8% for U.S. women to 66.9% for Australian men.
Measures
Bias avoidance. This variable was measured by 10 items, each rated 1 if present,
and 0 if not present. These items were generated from exploratory qualitative
research (Drago et al, 2001). The survey was piloted extensively and modified where
appropriate prior to administration. Three of the 12 items were identified as
measuring “productive” bias avoidance behaviors. The remaining seven items were
designed to measure “unproductive” bias avoidance behaviors. Six of the items on
bias avoidance were written such that any academic staff member could respond.
The remaining four items on bias avoidance were specific to parents, with nonparents
asked to skip the relevant section.
Control variables. In our regression analyses, we controlled for age (in years), tenure
status (coded 1=tenured, 0=not tenured), department (1 = Chemistry, 0= English),
and place of birth (1 = overseas, 0 = local).
Method of Analysis
The first step of the analysis was to examine the percentage distributions of the 10
bias avoidance behaviors across the two samples. A series of binary logistic regression were then used to examine the relationship between gender and each of
the bias behaviors, controlling for a range of variables outlined below. The results of
these regressions are presented separately for each of the 10 behaviors. Gender
was coded 1 if the person was female and 0 if male. Potential country effects were
represented by a dummy variable (U.S. = 1, Australia = 0). In addition, a crosscountry
interaction between gender and country was included. The product term
representing gender and country was included in order to assess whether the effects
of gender significantly differed by country. To test the interaction term, variables were
centered prior to analysis. The relationships were tested using regression to control
for variables simultaneously and to take into account the interrelationships among the
independent variables. Listwise deletion was used for missing data. In addition to the
control variables identified above, age was also entered as a quadratic (age squared)
to test for the possibility that bias avoidance behaviors become more frequent as
people enter the prime child-rearing years of the mid-to-late 30s through the early
50s, and then tail off with increasing age.
Results
Table 2 presents results comparing reports of productive bias avoidance behaviors
by gender and country. The first two questions were asked of all respondents, while
the last was only asked of parents. Pooling across the two samples, we found
statistically significant gender differences on the three bias avoidance behaviors, with
women more likely to report the behaviors. Surprisingly, no national differences
emerged, suggesting that biases against caregiving are equally common in both
nations. Given that productive bias avoidance behaviors are likely founded in an
unequal division of labor in the home, the insignificant interaction results suggest this
source of gender inequality is similar in both nations.
Table 3 presents results comparing unproductive bias avoidance behaviors by
gender and country. The first three questions were asked of all respondents, and
address potential reasons why an individual did not ask for a reduced teaching load
when needed for family reasons. The remaining four items in Table 3 were asked
only of parents. Pooling across the two samples, we found statistically significant
gender differences on the six of the seven unproductive bias avoidance behaviors,
with women more likely to report the behaviors.
The strongest gender effect was observed for the item, “I came back to work sooner
than I would have liked after having a new child because I wanted to be taken
seriously as an academic.”
Across both samples, over three times as many women as men reported this
behavior. On five of the seven behaviors, Australian respondents (irrespective of
gender) reported a significantly higher incidence of bias behaviors. This effect was
particularly strong for the item, “I did not ask for a reduced teaching load when I
needed it for family reasons, because it would put an undue burden on others.” Over
50% of Australian men and women reported engaging in this behavior compared with
approximately one-quarter of US men and women. Similarly, just under 60% of
Australian men and women reported having “missed some of my children’s important
events to appear committed to the job,” compared with just over one third and under
one half of US men and women, respectively.
However, there were no statistically significant interactions between gender and
country on the seven unproductive bias avoidance behaviors, indicating that the
effect of gender was not dependent on country.
Discussion
The research presented in this paper examines the extent to which bias avoidance
behaviors are prevalent among U.S. and Australian faculty. There are three main
findings of this study.
1. The Australian sample (irrespective of gender) reported significantly higher
unproductive bias avoidance behaviors than the U.S. sample.
2, Women irrespective of country reported higher levels of bias avoidance
behaviors.
3. There were no significant statistical interactions on any of the bias avoidance
behaviors i.e. the effects of gender did not vary by country.
The result that stands out is that whether we consider productive or unproductive
bias avoidance behaviors, or such behavior in the aggregate, women are consistently
more likely to deploy these strategies in both the U.S. and Australia. Women are
more likely than men to sacrifice family in order to maintain their function and
appearance as ideal workers. Similar findings have been found in other industries
and other western countries. For example, Liff and Ward (2001) found that in a U.K.
bank that tacitly rewarded long work hours, the women themselves did not even ask
about flexible hours for fear that they would signal that they were not serious about
promotion. The likelihood that bias avoidance is both international in scope and
highly gendered is troubling not only for proponents of gender equity but also
because with regard to unproductive bias avoidance it implies that workplace
performance suffers as a result (Bailyn, 1993).
There were statistically significant differences by country on five of the seven
unproductive bias avoidance behaviors. In each case Australian academics,
irrespective of gender, were more likely to engage in unproductive bias avoidance
behaviors. This result suggests that the effects of a relatively stronger social safety
net for families and children found in Australia, and the more rigid tenure system
found in the U.S., are not strong. Instead, lower levels of unproductive bias
avoidance in the U.S. may be an indirect result of a greater emphasis on gender
equity in that nation (see also Drago, forthcoming).
In light of the potential role of gender equity in the U.S., it is surprising that there were
no statistically significant interactions between gender and country on any of the
items for either productive or unproductive bias behaviors. This finding suggests
that, to the extent we seek to reduce the incidence of bias avoidance behaviors, men
as well as women will need to be involved.
Implications
The results from this study confirm that bias avoidance is prevalent in both the U.S.
and Australian higher education sections as faculty feel the pressure to sacrifice
themselves at the altar of “keeping up appearances.” However these results also
have implications for other professionals such as doctors and lawyers because
keeping up appearances could be the mantra for the modern worker trying to balance
work and life responsibilities in a world where working long hours is becoming part of
the psychological contract between employee and employer. Bias avoidance
behaviors appear to be a rational response by individuals to maintain the reality and
appearance of commitment to career in a world that penalizes those that do not
conform to the ideal worker norm.
In a just society what efforts should professionals make to create a balanced life for
individuals as employees and/or caregivers? We argue that creating an environment
that supports individuals with caregiving roles requires creating a workplace culture
that supports and encourages individuals to integrate their work and personal lives.
This involves promoting models for change that challenge the ideal worker norm.
These key change mechanisms include developing inclusive work practices that
involve workgroups in the redesign of tasks and the implementation of flexible and
alternative working time arrangements, providing work/life policies that suit the
demographics of the workforce, and engaging in bias resistance activities such as
creating a culture of ‘covering’ work and scheduling meetings only during traditional
working hours.
* Anne Bardoel, Monash University, Melbourne, Associate Professor, Department of
Management and Business (with Carol Colbeck, Penn State University, University Park PA,
Brian Cooper, Monash University, Department of Management and Robert Drago, Penn
State University, University Park PA
Bibliography/References
< Return to index
|