New Kind of Coursework: Studies for years have posited that women make
less money than men and they face more obstacles in their professional lives.
It’s an issue that’s been well-chronicled and continues to make headlines with
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin being tabbed as Republican presidential candidate John
McCain’s running mate.
But a recent study is introducing some unusual metrics to explain causes for
these gender discrepancies: the placement of tee boxes on golf courses. Three
professors at the University of New Mexico have authored some research, “The
Impact of Gender-Differentiated Golf Course Structures on Women’s Networking
Abilities,” that ties women’s professional challenges to course design. The
study implies that because women’s tee boxes are on average 50 feet closer to a
hole than men’s, women are less likely to succeed in sales, management and
marketing professions.
“If on average the women's tees are far away from the men’s tees, this may
portray a negative belief about the golfing abilities of women—and perhaps by
extension negative beliefs about other abilities,” say coauthors Michelle M.
Arthur, Robert DelCampo and Harry J. Van Buren III, who studied data from 455
U.S. golf courses. The three say they also found “greater distances between tee
boxes to be strongly or significantly associated with lower female earnings in
all three occupations.”
= Member Only
