Quota are a type of affirmative action policy that has two main goals, namely to eliminate the underrepresentation of specific demographic groups and to overcome past discrimination. Quota are an active policy that can be implemented when equal opportunity – i.e. the equal treatment of different groups, for instance women and men – fails, for example due to implicit bias and institutional barriers.
Quota can be used by different types of organisations such as governments and companies to increase the representation of women in leadership positions, and by universities to increase the representation of ethnic minority groups. While the focus here will be on gender quota, the same effects may be assumed to be true for quota to increase the representation of ethnic minority groups.
Here is why quota are effective: if an organisation has an explicit gender quota for leadership positions and this is made public and included in job descriptions, women are much more likely to apply for these positions1.
Recently, there has been increasing backlash to quota, mostly because quota are misunderstood as anti-meritocratic and discriminatory. The belief that quota are anti-meritocratic is incorrect. Quota merely ensure that if there are two or more candidates who are equally qualified, the candidate who is a member of an underrepresented demographic group will be favoured. A woman who is hired for a leadership position at an organisation that has a gender quota in place is still equally qualified for the position as other candidates who were considered for the position.
Unfortunately, the misunderstanding that quota are anti-meritocratic can have negative effects for both the person hired and the people around her. Research shows that quota make people believe that the selection decision was not based on merit but on gender which in turn makes them view the woman who was selected as less competent2. This effect was also found for the woman who was hired, who will be more likely to doubt her own abilities3.
Another misunderstanding about quota is that they discriminate against men. Interestingly, research has shown that quota do not discriminate against men, because highly qualified men will still apply regardless of whether there is a quota in place and because quota do not affect the performance of highly qualified men in the job application process4. In fact, it may be argued that having a quota in place improves the efficiency of the hiring process, since quota discourage unqualified men from applying. What quota do is encourage more women to apply to positions they may otherwise not apply to and discourage unqualified men from applying for the same position, resulting in an increased pool of qualified candidates. This is supported by a study which showed that after a quota had been introduced by Sweden’s Social Democratic Party, on average a 10% increase in female politicians raised the proportion of competent male politicians by 3%5.
Backlash against quota can be minimised by explicitly communicating that a woman who was hired was hired primarily for her qualifications. Quota also need to be clear and unambiguous to prevent people from making biased assumptions based on their attitudes. Additionally, providing information that explains why a quota is needed and what the overall benefits of diversity are leads to more acceptance and higher fairness perceptions6.
Governments and organisations often put in place a gender quota of 30% women in leadership positions. Even though there is a positive intention, this implies that men in leadership is the norm. A gender quota of 30% women furthermore implicitly communicates that it is difficult to find qualified women for leadership positions. Alternatively and arguably more effectively, organisations could put in place neutral quota, e.g. a minimum of 40% and a maximum of 60% of either gender.
Quota are not only effective in promoting equal representation of women and men in leadership positions, but they are moreover needed in order to ever achieve equal representation. Quota alone are not sufficient to make an organisation more diverse in the long-term. To achieve this, organisations need leaders who understand the importance of diversity and who actually invest in changing the organisational culture to be more inclusive, in actively monitoring internal promotion and remuneration practices, and in removing institutional barriers.
- Balafoutas, L., & Sutter, M. (2012). Affirmative action policies promote women and do not harm efficiency in the laboratory. Science, 335, 579-582. Nater, C., & Sczesny, S. (2016). Affirmative action policies in job advertisements for leadership positions: how they affect women’s and men’s inclination to apply. European Journal of Social Psychology, 46, 891-902. Niederle, M., Segal, C., & Vesterlund, L. (2012). How costly is diversity? Affirmative action in light of gender differences in competitiveness. Management Science, 59(1), 1-16. ↩︎
- Heilman, M.E., Block, C.J., & Lucas, J.A. (1992). Presumed incompetent? Stigmatization and affirmative action efforts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(4), 536-544. ↩︎
- Heilman, M.E., Rivero, C.J., & Brett, J.F. (1991). Skirting the competence issue: effects of sex-based preferential selection on task choices of women and men. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(1), 99-105. ↩︎
- Balafoutas, L., & Sutter, M. (2012). Affirmative action policies promote women and do not harm efficiency in the laboratory. Science, 335, 579-582. Niederle, M., Segal, C., & Vesterlund, L. (2012). How costly is diversity? Affirmative action in light of gender differences in competitiveness. Management Science, 59(1), 1-16. ↩︎
- Besley, T., Folke, O., Persoon, T., & Rickne, J. (2017). Gender quotas and the crisis of the mediocre man: theory and evidence from Sweden. American Economic Review, 107(8), 2204-2242. ↩︎
- Komlenac, N., Neugebauer, L., Birke, J., & Hochleitner, M. (2023). All employees benefit: arguments that help increase support for affirmative action in academic careers. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10, 981. ↩︎