Quotas alone will not solve the problem
Would you like to see more women on corporate boards and in leadership positions in academia? A new CSH study recommends aligning quotas with an inclusive culture
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: GROUP SIZE AND BEHAVIOURAL INTERVENTIONS WERE INVESTIGATED FOR THEIR IMPACT ON MINORITY NODES' POSITION (RED) IN DEGREE RANKINGS OVER TIME. view more
CREDIT: COMPLEXITY SCIENCE HUB
[Vienna, May 25, 2023] — What is the impact of affirmative actions, such as quota systems, on minorities’ representation in top ranks of the academic and corporate worlds? Scientists used mathematical models for the first time to quantify how successful quota systems can be for improving women's visibility in science.
Their findings were published in the latest edition of the journal Communications Physics.
"The main question we wanted to answer was: the number of women has increased in academia and in the corporate sector over the past 100 years, but why do they not reach the top positions in their network?," points out Fariba Karimi, a scientist at the Complexity Science Hub and co-author of the paper.
According to the study, quotas alone are not sufficient to make minorities more visible in a network. “In essence, the results show that having even extreme quotas does not necessarily ensure that minorities will be represented in top ranks of the network as we would expect from their size,” says Karimi.
“In contrast, a very moderate quota would be extremely useful when it is combined with an inclusive environment in which people, especially those in high power positions, are open to bringing minorities into their personal networks,” adds Karimi. “By doing so, they are basically helping minorities grow their social capital through those connections.”
Hypothetical scenarios
In the study, the researchers created a network growth model to analyse how successful interventions can be for improving minorities's visibility in social networks. Two kinds of interventions were tested: group size interventions, such as quotas; and behavioral interventions, such as changing the way groups interact.
“We ran this two hypothetical scenarios, sometimes isolated, sometimes combined, as we wanted to evaluate which combination of interventions would be more effective in pushing minorities to the top of the ranking,” explains Karimi.
The model took into account two key social processes. First, the formation of structural inequalities that emerge within social networks due to certain preexisting societal biases, such as in-group favoritism or homophily – the notion that humans tend to preferentially interact and connect with individuals who are like them in some way. Second, the impact of different interventions on changing those initial structural inequalities.
The results show, for instance, that even a very strong group size intervention - to have a 90 percent quota - will not improve minorities' representation in the top ranks to a level proportional to their total size if the initial configuration is strongly homophilic. As a result of historical and cumulative structural inequality, minorities are locked in their initial network position.
Multidimensional
“The study shows that the discussion [of improving minorities’ visibility] should not be one-dimensional”, highlights Leonie Neuhäuser, from RWTH Aachen University and co-autor of the study.
From a network perspective, increasing the size of a group does not necessarily increase the visibility of minorities, according to Leonie Neuhäuser, from RWTH Aachen University and co-autor of the study. “Obviously, this is a necessary step, but we should also consider the social network structure and behavioural aspects when designing interventions.”
The results indicate some behavioural interventions that may affect minority representation in top ranks. A minority group could benefit from increasing networking if they are large enough to gain a cumulative advantage in a growing social network. Alternatively, if quotas are not large enough, the majority group should be encouraged to mix with the minority group, since the latter will not gain visibility without connecting to the former.
Hard to change
Despite the difficulty of changing behavior, Karimi emphasizes that increasing diversity depends on it. Leaders and top-level professionals can be educated about this issue and be inclusive when bringing people with diverse backgrounds into important positions on social networks, according to Karimi.
“We also need some regulation,” adds Karimi. “As humans, we have a tendency to prefer interacting with people who are similar to ourselves, since it is less cognitively demanding – the homophily principle. Evolutionarly speaking, we are rewired to avoid interacting with outgroup members and that is why incentivising and educating people about the benefits of diversity can help overcome those barriers."
Due to the external regulations, after a certain number of minority people are incorporated into the system, things begin to change. Having more people of diverse backgrounds around us reduces our fear of strangeness. As a result, behavior would follow."
About the Complexity Science Hub
The mission of the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) is to host, educate, and inspire complex systems scientists dedicated to making sense of Big Data to boost science and society. Scientists at the Complexity Science Hub develop methods for the scientific, quantitative, and predictive understanding of complex systems.
The CSH is a joint initiative of AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Central European University CEU, Danube University Krems, Graz University of Technology, Medical University of Vienna, TU Wien, VetMedUni Vienna, Vienna University of Economics and Business, and Austrian Economic Chambers (WKO). https://www.csh.ac.at
JOURNAL
Communications Physics
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Computational simulation/modeling
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Improving the visibility of minorities through network growth interventions
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
20-May-2023
COI STATEMENT
L.N. and M.T.S. acknowledge funding by the Ministry of Culture and Science (MKW) of the German State of North Rhine- Westphalia ("NRW Rückkehrprogramm") and under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the Länder. J.B. and F.K. were supported by the Austrian research agency (FFG) under project No. 873927 ESSENCSE. L.N. would like to thank the Complexity Science Hub Vienna for hosting her for a research visit.
Mural of a female miner. (Image by Jason Paris, Flickr).
Mining firms lag far behind other sectors on female representation in top leadership, data released on Tuesday showed.
S&P Global Commodity Insights’ figures highlight the industry’s struggle to improve gender equity, with women filling just 12.1% of the highest-ranking executive positions across more than 2,000 publicly-listed miners globally as of April, a rise of only 1.6 percentage points from October 2021.
Women currently hold 14% of all mining executive positions and 12.3% of board roles, the data showed. This compares to a female representation of 42.7% in senior and leadership roles globally across sectors, according to the World Economic Forum.
“Change takes time, and progress may vary across different industries and regions,” said Barbara Dischinger, director of London-based International Women in Mining.
Dischinger said barriers slowing the pace of expected improvement include implicit biases in selection and promotion processes and a lack of role models, mentoring and sponsorship.
Executive and boardroom diversity has become a focus for many policymakers and investors who say a broader range of experience improves decision-making and corporate culture.
Despite mining CEOs saying gender diversity is a priority and setting ambitious goals, progress remains slow and patchy.
The share of female senior managers at Anglo American was stable at 29% in 2022 from a year earlier, versus a goal of 33% by 2023, while the proportion of female senior leaders at Rio Tinto was 28.3% last year, a 0.9 percentage point rise from 2021, their annual reports show.
“If we do not address challenges relating to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), there will be far-reaching implications for the industry’s ability to attract and retain the talent needed,” said Rohitesh Dhawan, CEO of the International Council of Mining and Minerals.
“We have an obligation to eradicate discrimination, harassment, and assault of any kind in our workplaces,” he said.
An independent report commissioned by Rio’s management and published in 2022 found 28.2% of women working in the company reported experiencing sexual harassment at work.
Fund manager abrdn said in February it had engaged with some of the largest mining companies it holds shares in after “incidents of unacceptable workplace behaviours”.
“What we want is for mining companies’ rigorous health and safety standards to be expanded to include employees’ psychological wellbeing and potential risk of harassment,” said Andrew Mason, abrdn head of active ownership.
“Companies need to show they have those measures in place to attract diverse employees.”
(By Clara Denina and Helen Reid; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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