The Daughter Effect

“As a dad to daughters, I care a lot about women’s economic empowerment,” a CEO told me at a recent networking event, a slightly conspiratorial look in his eye. Only social etiquette prevented me from rolling my eyes. Of course, I understood what he was trying to say. His sentiment even seemed sincere. But something about it rankled.

Why should a man’s commitment to gender equality depend on whether he happens to have daughters? I wondered. Surely, women’s economic empowerment is worth championing not because of the gender of a man’s kids, but because of the principles he holds — principles that ought to apply to all of us, not just some of us. Surely it should be a matter of moral conviction and not paternal circumstances.

But this weekend, I stumbled upon some research that made me wonder whether I’d been too quick to dismiss him. What if, however uncomfortable the admission, having daughters really does make men more committed to gender equality — not just in what they say, but in what they actually do?

New research recently published in “The Review of Economic Studies” suggests exactly this. In it, the economists Maddalena Ronchi and Nina Smith examined what happens inside companies when male managers become fathers to daughters rather than sons.

Drawing on 26 years of Danish employment records, they discovered that, following the birth of a male manager’s first daughter, women’s earnings at the company relative to men’s earnings rose by 4.4%, while women’s employment increased by 2.9%. The shift, the academics concluded, was driven largely by male managers becoming more likely to hire women when given the opportunity to hire either men or women with comparable qualifications.

What particularly struck me about the effect was how quickly it happened: The academics observed that the change in behavior occurred almost immediately after the birth of a manager’s first daughter and it persisted over time. In other words, the fathers didn’t need to spend years watching their daughters navigate a world of unequal opportunities. They didn’t need to witness the professional barriers these girls and women crashed up against. 

Instead, simply having a daughter seemed to be enough to change the way the men treated other women. (Intriguingly, the effect only occurred after the birth of a male manager’s first daughter. Additional daughters didn't produce a further measurable shift. Apparently, it takes just one daughter to make a difference.)

One other revealing finding: The managers who began hiring more women after becoming dads to girls weren’t sacrificing talent or productivity in the process. The women they hired were just as qualified as the men they might otherwise have employed, and the researchers found no significant deterioration in company performance.

I find this intriguing and encouraging, but quite depressing too.

On the one hand, the research suggests that men’s behavior toward women is not as fixed as we might fear. Bias isn’t some immutable feature of a person’s character. It can evolve — sometimes very quickly — when personal changes cause us to view the world through a different lens. So yes, good news.

But let’s also consider what it reveals about the flimsiness of our commitment to fairness. Why should a woman have a better chance of getting hired just because the man making the decision happens to have a daughter? Why should her prospects depend on the composition of someone else’s family? Moreover, how is it that it takes a male manager to have a daughter to open his eyes to the idea that a woman on his team might be just as qualified as a man.

Empathy that depends on personal proximity is an imperfect foundation for equality, but — hear me out, now — it does suggest that sharing our own experiences of injustice and discrimination in the workplace — with friends and loved ones who may not have endured the same — is a worthwhile and important exercise. After all, while we shouldn't have to experience inequality firsthand to recognize it, hearing about it from someone we care about might help us see what we've previously overlooked. And if that’s what it takes, well, so be it. 

The more we understand about what actually changes people's behavior, rather than simply what they say they believe, the better equipped we'll be to create workplaces where fairness isn't contingent on the personal lives of the men in charge.