Women in Business Chair

The mission of the Women in Business Chair, which is attached to the Sciences Po Centre for Entrepreneurship, is to identify the obstacles that prevent women from achieving their ambitions, propose initiatives, and evaluate their impact.

Organisation

The chair is led by economist Anne Boring, affiliated researcher at the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP) and assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam. 

Launched in 2018, the Chair conducts its activities in collaboration with the Centre for Entrepreneurship, the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP), and the academic and research program on gender issues (PRESAGE), as well as with prestigious partner universities (Harvard, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Bocconi University, etc.) 

Context

Over the last 20 years, little progress has been made in reducing gender inequalities in the labour market. 

The Chair’s founding was prompted by several findings, based on data from the OECD, Eurostat, ILO and national data institutes, which show that:

• the gender pay gap is persistent;
• women remain a minority in leadership positions;
• fewer women earn science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degrees, leading women to be under-represented in innovation and in higher-paying occupations;
• women are underrepresented in entrepreneurship, especially in start-up environments;
• women-led businesses receive a tiny share of funds going to entrepreneurs;
• women are more often in part-time jobs, not always by choice;
• women are more likely to be in poverty or at risk of being in poverty;
• parenthood impacts mothers’ more than fathers’ careers;
• the Covid-19 crisis has disproportionately impacted women.

Objectives

The Women in Business Chair has three objectives:

• to create programmes and initiatives promoting professional equality and to scientifically assess their impact;
• to improve the academic content of the courses delivered at Sciences Po using the knowledge produced by the Chair;
• to disseminate the Chair’s findings to a wide audience and inform those concerned of the most effective initiatives to implement. 

Knowledge dissemination

The Chair’s activities are aimed at four target audiences:

• Sciences Po students are the primary beneficiaries of the knowledge created through the Chair. 
• Policymakers who design legislation on gender equality measures in the geographic areas where the research is conducted.
• Business leaders who are interested in designing effective policies at the industry or firm level to generate gender equality.
• Partner universities of Sciences Po (more than 400 globally) who are interested in conducting research on improving women’s labor-market outcomes.

Activities

The Chair conducts research on several issues related to gender equality at work:

• the effectiveness of company policies designed to increase gender equality;
• the specific barriers that women face in business and the design of solutions to overcome these barriers;
• gender differences in higher education choices, in relation to changes in the labour market;
• the quality of the advice given to women in the literature on women’s careers in business;
• the labour market position of women experiencing poverty;
• the employment prospects of mid-career women who find their professional development stalled;
•  interventions targeting hostile work cultures that are damaging for women’s careers; 
• the impact of the Covid-19 health crisis on gender equality in the workplace;
• the quality of the advice given to women in the literature on women’s careers in business;

Working method

Each research project uses the same method:

1. Description of inequalities and identification of the mechanisms that lead to them
2. Development of interventions to reduce these inequalities
3. Impact assessment of these interventions

Based on methodologies developed in economics and econometrics, the research approach includes the analysis of large databases as well as experiments. The fieldwork is carried out in collaboration with companies, universities, and other organisations interested in providing a setting to collect data and test interventions. 

Teaching and courses

The Chair’s research not only develops knowledge about gender equality in the labour market and business, but also feeds into the academic content of the courses taught at Sciences Po. The teaching and learning activities based on the Chair’s research output are cross-cutting and are led by the Centre for Entrepreneurship in connection with PRESAGE. These activities consist of training modules (one-off workshops or longer courses) that help Sciences Po students to better prepare for entering the labour market, and thus ultimately to reduce the entry-level wage gap.

The range of teaching and learning activities may include work with student associations, as well as group projects within the Master’s programmes on themes related to the Chair. Other courses may be created in future, particularly in Executive Education.

“My objective is to help women achieve their own goals” 
Anne Boring, Chair director

Become a partner

Benefit from the work of the chair

• Organise research-based company seminars on issues related to gender equality in the workplace;
• Participate academically to the study of the evolution of workplace paradigms;
• Promote research within the HR ecosystem so that companies can use research findings and develop their own solutions and action programmes;
• Develop ties with Sciences Po students and partner organisations.

Strenghten your image and your employer brand

• Be associated with a project whose work will be widely disseminated in the public domain, thanks to a powerful presence in both the traditional media and on social networks.
• Promote diversity within your own organization and programs;
• Encourage entrepreneurship as a fulfilling project/career for women;
• Participate in the debate around work-life balance;
• Acknowledgement on all print and web documents and event displays for the Chair.