Louise Roth

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 5 journal articles, represent 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’s work has been reviewed by many business journalists and she blogs for the Huffington Post on issues of gender equity and work-family balance, among other things.

Roth is currently pursuing an interest in healthcare. She is currently working on a paper that examines the effects of bonus-pay on the gender gap in pay among physicians.  Her latest project examines how the malpractice environment influences maternity care in the United States, with the goal of later comparing the U.S. maternity care to other countries including Canada and the United Kingdom.  Roth takes an organizational approach and analyzes state-level and over-time variation in c-section rates.  She is also planning to examine the effects of malpractice and health-related laws on physician satisfaction and beliefs about the healthcare system.