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Abstract
Occupational gender segregation is a persistent issue, as many women and many men continue to work in occupational silos. In this presentation, I take a social psychological perspective to discuss how a strong masculinity work culture (a workplace ethos of male dominance), prevalent in male-dominated organizations, actively contributes to gender segregation. Drawing from the identity engagement model of social identity threat, a field study and three experiments demonstrate how strong masculinity norms in the workplace promote the devaluation of the female social identity (i.e., women’s gender ingroup), which in turn discourages women’s participation by undermining their personal sense of status. Field data with balanced numbers of men and women working in male-dominated, female-dominated, and gender-neutral industries reveal that strong masculinity norms are more prevalent in workplaces where women are underrepresented, and that women (but not men) report personally feeling lower status in these workplaces. Two experiments further show that people assume that female employees elicit less status than male employees (i.e., are less respected, admired, and well-regarded) in a workplace with strong masculinity norms, and that this devaluation of the female social identity undermines women’s personal sense of status in those environments. As a result, women are less interested than men in joining a hypothetical company described as having a strong masculinity work culture (vs. weak masculine or control). Across studies, masculinity norms undermine women’s sense of status and discourage their participation above and beyond any effects of the estimated percentage of female employees in the organization, highlighting the key role of workplace norms in maintaining gender segregation. A final experiment leverages these insights to show that when the perceived status of the female social identity is enhanced, women no longer anticipate feeling lower status than men in workplaces with strong masculinity norms, and they are more interested in joining these workplaces. As a whole, these findings underscore the deleterious effects of strong masculinity workplace norms for gender diversity, as these norms are not a mere side effect of the overrepresentation of men, but actively contribute to maintaining gender segregation by devaluing the female social identity.

Dr. Andrea Vial is Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University Abu Dhabi, Global Network Assistant Professor at New York University, and the director of the Social Roles and Beliefs Lab (www.socialroleslab.com), which is dedicated to investigating the psychology of gender employment segregation. Dr. Vial earned her PhD in Social Psychology from Yale University in 2018, and she was a Postdoctoral Associate at New York University prior to joining New York University Abu Dhabi in 2020. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach with emphasis on experimental methodologies, drawing from social psychological, sociological, organizational, and developmental perspectives to investigate the psychological processes that shape individuals’ career choices and how norms and stereotypes constrain their opportunities. She’s particularly interested in understanding how gender prejudice spreads in organizations, how people think of leadership in gender-stereotypic ways, and how work culture reflects and reinfocres gender employment segregation. Dr. Vial’s research has been published in Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, among other scientific outlets. Her work has also been featured by media outlets such as Forbes, NPR, World Economic Forum, and Science Magazine.