Does The Pandemic Differently Affect Parents And Non-Parents in How Their Claims For More Work Responsibility or a Promotion are Granted? And Does Gender Matter?
Creators: name: Stein, Louisa-Katharina
name: Schleu, Joyce
name: Bijleveld, Erik
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: Career Advancement
subject: Gender
subject: Leadership
subject: Relational Claim-Making
subject: Relational Inequality Theory
subject: SARS-COV-2 Pandemic
subject: Supervisor

description: Women represent 51% of the European population (Eurostat, 2021b) but only hold 28% of the general leadership positions (ERT, 2021; EWOB, 2021). Even more remarkable, of 668 European organisations studied, only 42 had a female CEO in 2020 (EWOB, 2021). Thus, the gender gap in leadership positions persists despite governmental and organisational efforts to reduce it. Although women meet the formal requirements to pursue a career at least to the same extent as men (i.e., educational achievements) (Eurostat, 2021a), their employment rates (Eurostat, 2019a) and work hours are lower than men's (Eurostat, 2019b). This disproportional workforce participation can primarily be explained by domestic responsibilities (Kark &amp; Eagly, 2010). A traditional division of labour, with women being responsible for childcare and housework, persists in many families (Andrew et al., 2020; EIGE, 2010) and was amplified by the SARS-COV-2 pandemic. In many countries, schools and kindergartens were (partly) closed to prevent the spread of SARS-COV-2. These closings resulted in increased childcare and housework for men and women, but their contribution remained unequal (Andrew et al., 2020; Dunatchik et al., 2021; Rubery &amp; Tavora, 2020): Women reported spending 1.25 times more time on childcare and two times more time on housework than men (Andrew et al., 2020). In addition, women were not only more likely to be interrupted during work hours (Andrew et al., 2020), but they also adapted their working times (Yerkes et al., 2020) and reduced their work hours more often than men (Andrew et al., 2020). The above findings imply that women juggled family and work obligations by prioritising their families and deprioritising their work. This increased gender inequality in care demands will likely spill over to career opportunities, potentially widening the gender gap in leadership positions in the long term. The present studies investigate the potential gendered effect of the pandemic on career opportunities and the underlying mechanisms. Thereby, this project will provide a crucial basis for developing appropriate counteractions to amplified employment outcome inequalities. Relational Inequality Theory (RIT) proposes relational claim-making, a two-step process, as an underlying mechanism causing organisational inequalities (Avent-Holt &amp; Tomaskovic-Devey, 2014, 2019). First, an employee claims an organisational resource. Second, a person of power (e.g., a supervisor) must agree with the claim and legitimate granting of the claimed resource (Avent-Holt &amp; Tomaskovic-Devey, 2014, 2019). RIT predicts that the perceived legitimacy of the claim, relevant for both steps, is primarily determined by two generic resources – categorical distinctions (e.g., gender, parenthood, and position) and environmental context (e.g., organisational culture and policies); these resources are associated with status differences legitimating or invalidating a claim (Avent-Holt &amp; Tomaskovic-Devey, 2014, 2019). Relevant categorical distinctions are gender (i.e., male vs female) and parenthood (i.e., yes vs no). Moreover, human capital differences, such as work performance and work hours, also function as categorical distinctions determining the legitimacy of a claim (Avent-Holt &amp; Tomaskovic-Devey, 2014). Multiple salient categorical distinctions can reinforce each other (Avent-Holt &amp; Tomaskovic-Devey, 2014). The pandemic likely heightened the salience of categorical distinctions such as gender and parenthood as the increased need for family-related adjustments was in the attentional focus. Moreover, it is likely that the pandemic also exaggerated human capital differences due to risen care demands reducing women's resources needed to maintain their work hours and work performance. The increased salience of gender, parenthood, and exaggerated human capital differences likely intersect, reducing the likelihood that female parents claim more work responsibility or a promotion to a leadership position (researched in Study 1). Importantly, to actually receive the claimed organisational resource, a person of power must grant the claim based on its perceived legitimacy, again influenced by categorical distinctions (Avent-Holt &amp; Tomaskovic-Devey, 2014). As outlined above, we assume that the categorical distinctions of gender, parenthood and human capital determine the supervisor's evaluation of the claim legitimacy —and consequently predict claim-granting.