Measuring Gender Composition in Work Groups: A Comparison of Existing Methods

Reviewing research on diversity and relational demography in teams and work groups, the authors compare different ways of measuring gender composition and demonstrate that existing practice can be theoretically biased. The authors conclude that within group-level analyses, the proportion of women should be used; whereas within individual-level analyses, the appropriate approach depends on whether a gender-by-gender composition interaction effect is found. The generalizability of this approach to other types of diversity is also discussed.

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