Social Inequality - Publications - Faculty & Research

25 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

Women make up more than half of the labor force in the United States and earn almost 60 percent of advanced degrees, yet they bring home less pay and fill fewer seats in the C-suite than men, particularly in male-dominated professions like finance and technology. This... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2021
Working Paper

The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy,... View Details

Keywords: K-12 Education; China; Real Estate; Early Childhood Education; Performance Evaluation; Teaching; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Personal Development and Career; Social Issues; Nonprofit Organizations; Private Sector; Education Industry; Real Estate Industry; China

Citation

Read Now

May 19, 2021
Article

Measuring the Impact of #MeToo on Gender Equity in Hollywood

By: Hong Luo and Laurina Zhang

The #MeToo movement has brought issues of sexual harassment and gender inequities to the forefront around the world. But how much of a tangible impact has it had on the experiences of women in the workplace? In this piece, the authors discuss their research that... View Details

Keywords: #MeToo Movement; Gender Equity; Creative Industries; Impact; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Film Entertainment; Social Issues

Citation

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

21 Aug 2023
Book

You’re More Than Your Job: 3 Tips for a Healthier Work-Life Balance

grit is going to overcome structural inequality and the lack of growth in real wages. Each of these pieces has made stability harder to achieve individually and collectively.” One of the more telling indicators of the shift in how... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

Web

Marketing - Doctoral

Past Experiments for Intervention Personalization; Communicating with Consumers: How Firms’ Responses to Societal Change Influence Consumer Behavior; Three Essays on Cost-benefit Trade-offs in Individual and Organizational Decision-Making; Who Deserves What? How... View Details

05 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

The Middle Manager of the Future: More Coaching, Less Commanding

important,” he says. “But I think it’s increasingly going to be the social skills, the cognitive skills, the ability to learn things and the ability to adapt that are going to be more important.” For example, Zhang says, more important... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

October 1998 (Revised September 1999)
Case

Brazil Confronts an Interdependent World

By: George C. Lodge and Cate Reavis

Discusses the politics of change and how Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, elected in 1994, has fought to promote systemic change in Brazil. While his Real Plan has stabilized inflation and attracted foreign investment, the nation's deficit continues to... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Government and Politics; Inflation and Deflation; Foreign Direct Investment; Equality and Inequality; Change; Social Issues; Public Administration Industry; Brazil

Citation

Educators

Purchase

07 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

When Glasses Land the Gig: Employers Still Choose Workers Who 'Look the Part'

Seeking a programming gig? Wear glasses and keep your laptop in frame if you want your profile picture to attract recruiters on hiring platforms. A new study finds freelancers are more likely to land work when they “look the part” for a particular job. But, as... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

26 Jul 2022
Blog Post

Driving Change in Education-to-Employment

The HBS Summer Fellows Program enables students to apply their classroom training as they explore career opportunities in roles or regions where compensation is generally lower than the traditional MBA level. This summer, we are connecting with some of our 61 View Details

Web

Placement - Doctoral

Serena Hagerty Marketing, 2022 Placement: University of Virginia, Darden School of Business Dissertation: Who deserves what? How beliefs about fairness and inequality influence social judgment Advisors:... View Details

02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

22 Aug 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Investors as Stewards of the Commons?

Keywords: by George Serafeim

December 2004
Supplement

Basic Statistics from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, 2004

By: David A. Moss, Sarah A. Brennan and Peter Epstein

Provides basic economic and social indicators for 145 countries, drawn from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (2004). The data include: population, land area, GNP per capita, real GDP growth, life expectancy, adult illiteracy, fertility rate, access to... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Wealth and Poverty; Standards; Economics; Society

Citation

Purchase

11 Jun 2024
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2024

As the vacation season looms, Harvard Business School faculty members share recommendations for a little light reading. Spoiler alert: Lessons in Chemistry tops two of their beach-read lists. For those whose brains can’t—or won’t—turn off, HBS faculty also suggest some... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

31 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

Beyond the 'Business Case' in DEI: 6 Steps Toward Meaningful Change

terms of the benefits and “bottom line” are the least likely to follow their commitments with action. Conversely, leaders who take steps to expand opportunity tend to be people who acknowledge the underlying inequality and believe that... View Details

Keywords: by Katherine Hutt Scott and Barbara DeLollis

Web

Finance - Faculty & Research

commercial properties. June 2025 Article Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha Sarin Recent influential work finds large increases in View Details

June 10, 2021
Article

How to Be a Purpose-Driven Leader in a Capitalist World

By: Celia Bravard, John Pontillo and Andrew J. Hoffman

Today’s business school education isn’t suited to the big challenges facing the world — climate change, economic inequality and racial injustice — that the leaders of tomorrow will be expected to solve. So, how can students and young professionals succeed in a system... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Mission and Purpose; Social Issues; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Opportunities

Citation

Read Now

31 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Why the Largest Minority Group Faces the Most Hate—and How to Push Back

American cities have experienced an alarming double-digit rise in hate crimes in recent years, due in part to factors like anti-Asian sentiment in the wake of the pandemic and racial strife following the murder of George Floyd. Now, new research suggests yet another... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

Web

Initiatives & Projects - Faculty & Research

Equity Initiative catalyzes and translates cutting-edge research to transform practice, enable leaders to drive change, and eradicate gender, race, and other forms of inequality in business and society. View Details

2014
Article

Models of Caring, or Acting as if One Cared, About the Welfare of Others

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper surveys the theoretical literature in which people are modeled as taking other people's payoffs into account either because this affects their utility directly or because they wish to impress others with their social-mindedness. Key experimental results that... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Citation

Find at Harvard

Read Now