Dafna Gelbgiser | Tel Aviv University (original) (raw)

Papers by Dafna Gelbgiser

Sociology of education, Apr 9, 2024

The unequal division of cognitive labor within households, and its potential association with men... more The unequal division of cognitive labor within households, and its potential association with mental load and stress, has gained substantial interest in recent public and scholarly discussions. We aim to deepen this debate theoretically and empirically. First, going beyond the question of whether the division of cognitive labor is gendered, we connect cognitive household labor with existing stress theories and ask whether men and women typically perform cognitive labor tasks that involve different levels of stress. We then discuss whether women perform these stressful tasks more often, making them more prone to higher levels of family-work conflict. Second, we test the association between the division of cognitive labor and family-work conflict empirically using large-scale survey data from 10 European countries within the Generations & Gender Programme (GGP). Results based on logistic regressions confirm that a high share of cognitive labor increases women's family-work conflict, but not men's. We discuss future directions in the conceptualization and measurement of cognitive labor in the household and its implications for mental load. Through its contributions, this paper lays the foundations for a comprehensive understanding of the implications of an unequal division of cognitive labor in the household for gender inequality. Declaration of equal authorship: Both authors contributed equally to the paper. Acknowledgements: We thank the Family and Generations research group at NIDI for valuable comments on this paper and for an insightful research visit. We also thank Nicole Hiekel and Florian Schulz for comments on earlier versions of this work and all collages at the PAA 2023 (New Orleans), RC28 2022 (LSE), and BIB Turning Gold 2023 conference.

Social Problems, Jul 6, 2017

Using the example of green fields of study in higher education, which emerged largely in response... more Using the example of green fields of study in higher education, which emerged largely in response to the growing prominence of the environmental movement over recent decades, this article posits that new and emerging fields of study can be an important source of change in gender segregation across fields of study. We suggest that new and emerging fields of study, when framed outside of existing gender divisions, may transcend established gender divisions and be characterized by greater gender integration in both STEM and non-STEM disciplines. Patterns of gender segregation among over 9 million bachelor's degree recipients between 2009 and 2013 confirm that green programs are systematically characterized by greater gender equality relative to non-green fields, regardless of their STEM classification. Further, the more gender imbalanced the "parent" field, the greater the difference we find in the gender composition of green and non-green programs. These results imply that green programs are promoting greater gender equality across the higher education system, underscoring the effect of the organizational structure of higher education, such as the structure of fields of study available to students, on gender segregation in the academy.

The unequal division of cognitive labor within the household and its potential association with m... more The unequal division of cognitive labor within the household and its potential association with mental load gained substantial interest in recent academic and popular discussions. Here, we aim to deepen this debate theoretically and empirically. First, we connect the debate about cognitive household labor with existing stress theories, which enables us to reflect, which types of cognitive labor are especially stressful. We then discuss, whether women perform these types more often, making them more prone to experience higher levels of exhaustion because of household labor. Thus, we go beyond the question, whether the division cognitive labor is gendered and ask in addition whether men and women typically perform cognitive labor that are differently stressful. Second, we offer a quantitative measure of cognitive labor and analyze the gendered association between the division of cognitive labor in the household and exhaustion using large-scale survey data from seven European countries...

Supplemental material, Online_Appendices_MG_kw_edits for Pipeline Dreams: Occupational Plans and ... more Supplemental material, Online_Appendices_MG_kw_edits for Pipeline Dreams: Occupational Plans and Gender Differences in STEM Major Persistence and Completion by Kim A. Weeden, Dafna Gelbgiser and Stephen L. Morgan in Sociology of Education

Sociological Science, 2017

Women earn nearly half of doctoral degrees in research fields, yet doctoral education in the Unit... more Women earn nearly half of doctoral degrees in research fields, yet doctoral education in the United States remains deeply segregated by gender. We argue that in addition to the oft-noted segregation of men and women by field of study, men and women may also be segregated across programs that differ in their prestige. Using data on all doctorates awarded in the United States from 2003 to 2014, field-specific program rankings, and field-level measures of math and verbal skills, we show that (1) "net" field segregation is very high and strongly associated with field-level math skills; (2) "net" prestige segregation is weaker than field segregation but still a nontrivial form of segregation in doctoral education; (3) women are underrepresented among graduates of the highest-and to a lesser extent, the lowest-prestige programs; and (4) the strength and pattern of prestige segregation varies substantially across fields, but little of this variation is associated with field skills.

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015

Sociological Science, 2014

After introducing alternative perspectives on assimilation and acculturation, we use the 2002-201... more After introducing alternative perspectives on assimilation and acculturation, we use the 2002-2012 waves of the Education Longitudinal Study to model differences in educational attainment for students sampled as high school sophomores in 2002. We focus on patterns observed for the growing Mexican immigrant population, analyzing separately the trajectories of 1 st , 1.5 th , 2 nd , and 3 rd + generation Mexican immigrant students, in comparison to 3 rd + generation students who self-identify as non-Hispanic whites and students who self-identify as non-Hispanic blacks or African Americans. The results suggest that the dissonant acculturation mechanism associated with the segmented assimilation perspective is mostly unhelpful for explaining patterns of educational attainment, especially for the crucial groups of 1.5 th and 2 nd generation Mexican immigrant students. Instead, standard measures of family background can account for large portions of group differences in bachelor's degree attainment, with or without additional adjustments for behavioral commitment to schooling, occupational plans, and educational expectations. The broad structure of inequality in the United States, as well as the rising costs of bachelor's degrees, should be the primary source of concern when considering the prospects for the incorporation of the children of recent Mexican immigrants into the mainstream.

Social Science Research, 2016

This study examines the relationship between chosen field of study and the race gap in college co... more This study examines the relationship between chosen field of study and the race gap in college completion among students at elite colleges. Fields of study are characterized by varying institutional arrangements, which impact the academic performance of students in higher education. If the effect of fields on graduation likelihoods is unequal across racial groups, then this may account for part of the overall race gap in college completion. Results from a large sample of students attending elite colleges confirm that fields of study influence the graduation likelihoods of all students, above and beyond factors such as students' academic and social backgrounds. This effect, however, is asymmetrical: relative to white students, the negative effect of the institutional arrangements of math-oriented fields on graduation likelihood is greater for black students. Therefore, the race gap is larger within math-oriented fields than in other fields, which contributes to the overall race gap in graduation likelihoods at these selective colleges. These results indicate that a nontrivial share of the race gap in college completion is generated after matriculation, by the environments that students encounter in college. Consequently, policy interventions that target field of study environments can substantially mitigate racial disparities in college graduation rates.

a b s t r a c t In this article, we analyze gender differences in college major selection for res... more a b s t r a c t In this article, we analyze gender differences in college major selection for respondents to the Education Longitudinal Study (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006), focusing on educational pathways through college that lead to science, engineering, or doctoral-track medicine occupations and to non-doctoral track clinical and health sciences occupations. We show that gender differences in college major selection remain substantial, even for a cohort in which rates of enrollment in postsecondary education are more than ten percent higher for young women than for young men. Consistent with other recent research, we demonstrate that neither gender differences in work-family goals nor in academic preparation explain a substantial portion of these differences. However, the occupational plans of high school seniors are strong predictors of initial college major selection, a finding that is revealed only when occupational plans are measured with sufficient detail, here by using the...

Demography, 2021

It is well established that students from different socioeconomic backgrounds attend different co... more It is well established that students from different socioeconomic backgrounds attend different colleges, net of their academic preparation. An unintended consequence of these disparities is that in the aggregate, they enhance socioeconomic segregation across institutions of higher education, cultivating separate and distinct social environments that can influence students' outcomes. Using information on the academic careers of a nationally representative sample of U.S. high school students who entered college in the mid-2000s, matched with external information on the social context of each college, this study evaluates the extent of socioeconomic segregation by social context in higher education and its implications for socioeconomic inequality in bachelor's degree attainment. Results confirm that social context is highly consequential for inequality in student outcomes. First, disparities in social context are extensive, even after differences in demographics, skills, attit...

The recent expansion of for-profit colleges has opened up additional slots in higher education, b... more The recent expansion of for-profit colleges has opened up additional slots in higher education, but it remains unclear whether these additional slots mitigate or exacerbate the effect of family bac...

Sociology of Education

In the United States, women are more likely than men to enter and complete college, but they rema... more In the United States, women are more likely than men to enter and complete college, but they remain underrepresented among baccalaureates in science-related majors. We show that in a cohort of college entrants who graduated from high school in 2004, men were more than twice as likely as women to complete baccalaureate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including premed fields, and more likely to persist in STEM/biomed after entering these majors by sophomore year. Conversely, women were more than twice as likely as men to earn baccalaureates in a health field, although persistence in health was low for both genders. We show that gender gaps in high school academic achievement, self-assessed math ability, and family-work orientation are only weakly associated with gender gaps in STEM completion and persistence. Gender differences in occupational plans, by contrast, are strongly associated with gender gaps in STEM outcomes, even in models that ...

This study examines the relationship between chosen field of study and the race gap in college co... more This study examines the relationship between chosen field of study and the race gap in college completion among students at elite colleges. Fields of study are characterized by varying institutional arrangements, which impact the academic performance of students in higher education. If the effect of fields on graduation likelihoods is unequal across racial groups, then this may account for part of the overall race gap in college completion. Results from a large sample of students attending elite colleges confirm that fields of study influence the graduation likelihoods of all students, above and beyond factors such as students’ academic and social backgrounds. This effect, however, is asymmetrical: relative to white students, the negative effect of the institutional arrangements of math-oriented fields on graduation likelihood is greater for black students. Therefore, the race gap is larger within math-oriented fields than in other fields, which contributes to the overall race gap in graduation likelihoods at these selective colleges. These results indicate that a nontrivial share of the race gap in college completion is generated after matriculation, by the environments that students encounter in college. Consequently, policy interventions that target field of study environments can substantially mitigate racial disparities in college graduation rates.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a theory based on the interaction of network div... more The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a theory based on the interaction of network diversity and closure that can predict the likelihood that the network contains novel information.

Sociology of education, Apr 9, 2024

Social Problems, Jul 6, 2017

Sociological Science, 2017

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015

Sociological Science, 2014

Social Science Research, 2016

Demography, 2021

Sociology of Education

This study examines the relationship between chosen field of study and the race gap in college co... more This study examines the relationship between chosen field of study and the race gap in college completion among students at elite colleges. Fields of study are characterized by varying institutional arrangements, which impact the academic performance of students in higher education. If the effect of fields on graduation likelihoods is unequal across racial groups, then this may account for part of the overall race gap in college completion. Results from a large sample of students attending elite colleges confirm that fields of study influence the graduation likelihoods of all students, above and beyond factors such as students’ academic and social backgrounds. This effect, however, is asymmetrical: relative to white students, the negative effect of the institutional arrangements of math-oriented fields on graduation likelihood is greater for black students. Therefore, the race gap is larger within math-oriented fields than in other fields, which contributes to the overall race gap in graduation likelihoods at these selective colleges. These results indicate that a nontrivial share of the race gap in college completion is generated after matriculation, by the environments that students encounter in college. Consequently, policy interventions that target field of study environments can substantially mitigate racial disparities in college graduation rates.