The Mission
The Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) at the Rotman School of Management is using rigorous research to change the conversation on gender equality.
Our Work
At GATE, we are changing the conversation on gender equality by:
Funding, translating, and disseminating innovative, academic research
Investigating the hidden mechanisms that propagate gender inequality
Engaging executives, policy makers, and students to create new solutions for achieving equality, advancing careers, and creating economic prosperity
Our Four Pillars
Creating New Insights
Training Leaders Shaping Practice
Building Community
Attendees at The BAD Conference, hosted jointly by GATE and BEAR (Behavioural Economics in Action) at Rotman.
2018
In Review
Creating New Insights convened leading research scholars
Compounding
losses: Labour struggles of immigrant women in STEM
8 grants for a total of $52,000
Immigrant women face some of the biggest labour market challenges in Canada. Nadia Caidi and Saadia Muzaffar seek to document the gendered “work-finding” hurdles for immigrant women in STEM fields in order to begin examining the Loss on Investment (LOI) absorbed by the Canadian economy due to this untapped talent.
2018 Grant Recipients
Salary disclosure laws and the gender wage gap (Michael Baker, Yosh Halberstam, Kory Kroft, Alexandra Mas, and Derek Messacar)
Compounding Losses: Labour struggles of immigrant women in STEM (Nadia Caidi and Saadia Muzaffar)
Gender differences in labour income dynamics as drivers of financial decision-making (Michael Hasler, Mariana Khapko, and Chayawat Ornthanalai)
Choice architecture and women’s leadership ascension (Joyce He, Sonia Kang, and Nico Lacetera)
Think-Leader-Think-Women: People turn to women leaders for teams with hidden goals (Jing Hu and Geoffrey Leonardelli)
The labour market impacts of import competition on female workers: Evidence from Peru (Hani Mansour, Pamela Medina Quispe, and Andrea Velasquez)
Choice architecture and women’s leadership ascension
Research suggests that the process of selfnomination for promotions could put women at a disadvantage. Approaching this problem from a behavioural science perspective, Joyce He, Sonia Kang, and Nico Lacetera will use theories of “choice architecture” to applications for leadership positions. They hypothesize that using the “opt-out” choice framework will take the onus off women to “lean in” in order to apply and compete.
Creating New Insights convened leading
research scholars
research roundtable with participants 1 50
Erin Kelly, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT, presents her research titled, "Overload: How good jobs went bad," at our 4th Research Roundtable.
Featured discussion: Parental leave
Parental leave is often understood to be synonymous with maternity leave, but that’s only half of the story. Indeed, data from Statistics Canada shows that in 2017 90% of mothers took maternity leave, but only 12% of fathers took or intended to take paternity leave. What are the barriers preventing more fathers from taking leave, and how can we remove them?
View the research brief at gendereconomy.org/parental-leave-why-we-need-to-talk-about-fatherhood
Postdoctoral Fellow Bretton Fosbook on the Trans@Work project
Although transgender and gender diverse people are more visible in the workplace, barriers and biases remain. This project is conducting research that centers the economic experiences of trans people in order to improve the economic possibilities for trans Canadians and change the binary discussion of gender inequalities.
The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour (above), and Sarah Kaplan, Director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy (right), at a fireside chat with Rotman students on October 31.
ACHIEVING
Shaping Practice changed the conversation
IMPACT: CHANGED THE CONVERSATION
media mentions and interviews in 58 33 outlets
Listen to Local Women
“Organizations that want to empower women need to ask women directly what they find valuable and worthwhile about development projects and what changes they think would be most helpful to their lives. Their answers may not be what we expect, but their suggestions will be more likely to lead to stable, enjoyable, secure and successful lives. That's pretty powerful."
Rachael Goodman, GATE Postdoctoral Fellow, and Sarah Kaplan for The Mark News in February 2018, also syndicated by the Helsinki Times, Japan Today, The City Paper Bogotá, and the Peruvian Times.
Shaping Practice changed the conversation
panels, lectures, and events with over 17 1,800 attendees
Iris Bohnet, Roy E. Larsen Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, gives a keynote at The BAD Conference titled: "What Works: Gender Equality by Design."
Selected 2018 Events
Journalism and #MeToo
Featuring New York Times journalists
Jodi Kantor, Emily Steel and editor, Jessica Bennett
Women in STEM
Featuring Huda Idrees (Dot Health), Andrea Stairs (eBay Canada), Marisa
Sterling (U of T) and Jessica Yamoah (Innovate Inclusion)
"Why Young Men: Rage, Race, and the Crisis of Identity"
Jamil Jivani, founder of the Citizen Empowerment Project and visiting professor at Osgoode Hall Law School
"That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know and What Women Need to Tell Them"
Featuring Joanne Lipman, author and former Editor and Chief of USA Today
"Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter?"
Featuring Heath Fogg Davis, Director of Temple University's Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program
See upcoming events and recaps at gendereconomy.org/events
Training Leaders inspired new ways of thinking
MBA students appointed as GATE Student Fellows 6
Conducting a study to understand the values associated with masculinity at Rotman.
Lu Collecting the stories of students who are managing family responsibilities while working toward their MBA/ EMBA degree.
Verónica Hernandez
Herrera
Lechin
Narjis Premjee
Creating a podcast series that explores how and why people "cover" parts of their identity at work.
Alicia Riolino
Researching a white paper on how men and women make career choices; particularly in capital markets.
Adil Sethi
Creating and identifying key metrics that would encourage corporations to sponsor more women's athletics.
Alison Zimmer
Studying men’s attitudes and behaviours with regards to parental leave in order to identify ways to increase shared leave.
Training Leaders inspired new ways of thinking
Taught the MBA Designing for Equality Course with 20 students
MBA Fellow and course participant, Narjis Premjee, presents her group's work on improving savings and investment behaviour among new parents to Canadian bank executives.
Asked controversial questions Investigated solutions in the field
Prototyped and tested new ideas
Does the Gig Economy have unintended gender consequences?
Do pay transparency laws help close the gender wage gap?
What does it really take to get women on boards?
Are women held to a different standard than men in real-world evaluative situations?
Using cutting-edge business design methods, students developed a fact-based understanding of issues that are often ‘overly simplified’ and misunderstood.
Students worked with each other, Instructor and Executive-inResidence Vanessa Iarocci, and industry leaders to complete a series of assignments to ‘reframe problems’ and design solutions.
Students used Rotman’s business design methods to tackle real world problems such as helping people of all genders balance careers and personal lives, motivate more women to be investors, and help promote savings behaviour.
They pitched their solutions to Canadian bank executives.
Training Leaders inspired new ways of thinking
Women in Capital Markets Design Sprint challenge question:
Hosted
diversity and inclusion competitions with over students 120
You have complete control to design the ideal capital markets workplace. How might you design this workplace so that a female employee could develop a long-term and meaningful career?
Winning idea: Workload Delegation Tool
Team 6 (Franklin Tafadzwa Gumeyi, Jack Shi, Yurisleidy Zoreda Vazquezi, and Asli Zayim) proposed a software that would distribute new work based on bandwidth, priority, and capability. This would ensure that one team member wouldn't be overwhelmed and every employee’s work would be visible, accounted for, and recognized.
See more from this design sprint at gendereconomy.org/fostering-inclusion-women-in-capital-markets-design-sprint/ Learn about the LGBTQ+ case competition at gendereconomy.org/the-letters-diversity-and-inclusion-case-competition-fall-2018/
Building Community grew our online presence
In 2018, we experienced tremendous growth of our digital community, and expanded our reach across several countries.
Website visits
Subscriptions
Where's our audience?
Building Community gained partnerships
Industry Partners to co-create insights
Industry partners are a select group of organizations that are front-runners in creating, leading, and managing change.
Media Partners to spread the word
We have partnered with media outlets to publish and promote our ideas.
Academic Partners to advance research
With our Academic Partnerships, we will continue to advance rigorous research.
Who We Are
“Canada today has the opportunity to be a global beacon of light when it comes to gender equality."
Sarah Kaplan before the Senate Standing Committee on National Finance regarding Bill C-86 in December 2018.
From left to right: Bonnie Lam, Interim Associate Director; Alyson Colón, Associate Director; Sarah Kaplan, Director; Victoria Heath, Digital Communications Officer
Vanessa Serra Iarocci
Executive-in-Residence; Instructor
Dionne Pohler
Faculty Research Fellow
Nika Stelman
Alumna-in-Residence; Instructor
Kim de Laat
Postdoctoral Fellow
Maja Djikic Sonia K. Kang
Nouman Ashraf Faculty Teaching Fellow Faculty Teaching Fellow Faculty Research Fellow
Bretton Fosbrook
Postdoctoral Fellow
Rachael Goodman
Postdoctoral Fellow
Heather Sarsons
Postdoctoral Fellow
us on Twitter @GenderEconomy
us on LinkedIn as Institute for Gender and The Economy Join our newsletter via www.gendereconomy.org Come to our events via www.gendereconomy.org/events Email us directly at gender.economy@rotman.utoronto.ca
www.gendereconomy.org
gender.economy@rotman.utoronto.ca