Justice

Men With Daughters Are More Guilty of Doing This in The Workplace

June 9th 2017

Often when men want to prove they support women’s rights, they’ll mention how much they love their daughters, wives, or mothers.

While this response often elicits an eye roll from those who don’t need to lean on family members to express support for women, it turns out, these men may have a point when it comes to one particular relationship.

Dad holding baby girlPexels - pexels.com

Apparently, when a man has a daughter it does change his views towards women.

According to a study published in National Bureau of Economic Research in May, venture capitalists with daughters are more likely to hire female employees.

“Parenting daughters reduces the bias that one has towards women, which leads to more female hires,” study authors Paul Gompers and Sophie Wang wrote in the paper. Gompers, a Harvard University professor, and Wang, a Ph.D. student, researched venture capitalist firms from 1990‑2016 and obtained personal information from 1,400 investing partners.

"The more exposure we have to others who are different from us, the more we become debiased," Gompers, who has three daughters, told HuffPost. "Watching their struggles and issues, especially my 25-year-old who is working in a venture backed enterprise software company in New York City, has created insights that are certainly dependent upon having daughters."

Woman and man workingPexels - pexels.com

Partners who had daughters rather than sons were 24 percent more likely to hire women.

In firms with more sons, 9 percent of new hires were women. In firms with more daughters, that figure jumped to 12 percent. While this may seem like a small percentage, the research notes that venture capitalism is a still a male dominated field. A study published by TechCrunch in 2016 found that women made up just 7 percent of partners at the top 100 firms.

Gompers’ thinking has proven true in research regarding how men with daughters alter their thinking in other fields. Male judges with daughters were more likely to rule in favor of women’s issues, according to a 2014 study by Emory University and Harvard University. Male legislators with daughters voted more liberally in support of reproductive rights, according to 2006 report.

Diversity is good for business.

men and women in officeMax Pixel - freegreatpicture.com

The study also found that firms that had more gender diversity were more likely to be successful. These firms were 3 percent more likely to likely to go public or be acquired for more than the initial invested. Theses funds were also 3 percent more profitable.

Diversity in the office has long been linked to success. Research from McKinsey found that ethnic diversity and gender diversity made companies 15 and 35 percent, respectively, more likely to outperform their competitors. Study co-author Gompers said that this increase in success can be attributed to including more perspectives.

“If you have five white guys who all went to Harvard Business School and worked at Google, it’s likely when they see an investment or problem or decision, they frame it in the same way,” Gompers told The New York Times. “Having a diverse set of people really means you’re much less likely to have blind spots.”

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