Research Interests

Areas of expertise include gender, organizations, law, and the family.

Louise Roth's book Selling Women Short: Gender and Money on Wall Street, was published by Princeton University Press in 2006. This book, along with 7 journal articles, present the findings of doctoral research comparing men and women with very similar qualifications and work experience who started careers on Wall Street in the early 1990s. Roth interviewed 76 men and women at the height of the bull market, finding that subtle gender discrimination was facilitated by Wall Street’s highly variable pay system. This resulted in lower average earnings for women and a greater likelihood of derailment in women’s career paths. Despite this, some women were able to be very successful and their experiences suggest avenues for improving women’s opportunities in high-paying male-dominated occupations.

Roth is currently conducting research on how physician compensation systems affect gender inequality in medicine. She is pursuing funding for a mini-conference on how subjectivity, status, and context influence definitions of merit, value, and performance (“the social construction of merit”), which will tie together her work on discrimination in finance with the current research on physicians.

Louise Roth is also doing research on how malpractice and the health insurance system influence maternity care, including the rate of cesarean delivery. Cesareans may be an example of “defensive medicine” (medical practices designed to avert the future possibility of malpractice suits, rather than to benefit the patient). Roth takes an organizational approach and analyzes state-level and over-time variation in c-section rates, and intends to examine cross-national differences in light of varied health care systems. This research is in the funding and data analysis stage.

Roth's work on gender equity on Wall Street has been reviewed by many business journalists and she blogs for the Huffington Post and on her own website, http://www.louiseroth.com/, on issues including gender equity, work-family balance, health care, and birth. You can also follow her on Twitter (http://twitter.com/louiseroth).