Events

PSC Brown Bag Series: Mondays at noon, Live or on Zoom, ISR-Thompson Room 1430

Brown Bag Seminar: Ken-Ho Lin

Ken-Ho (Ken) Lin, UT Austin (Sociology) joins us Oct. 5 for:

The Status Trap: Examining Gender Disparities in Skill Signaling on LinkedIn

Existing research finds that men signal analytical and technical skills while women emphasize interpersonal competencies—a pattern commonly attributed to gender typing. We argue this focus on horizontal differentiation obscures a more consequential vertical stratification. Skill signaling, we propose, is better understood as a gendered status-claiming process: men and women decide which skills to signal based as much on the prestige and economic rewards these skills carry as on the type of competency they demand. Drawing on U.S. LinkedIn profiles, we confirm the familiar pattern: men report more analytical, technical, and mathematical skills, while women claim more relational and emotional ones. Yet once skills are differentiated by status, a different picture emerges. Men signal more high-status skills across every competency domain—including those built on communication, relational, and emotional expertise. The gap persists even among men and women matched on key labor market characteristics. These findings indicate that gender disparities in skill signaling are organized by the gendered appropriation of status—a dynamic that may help explain why the rising premium on interpersonal skills has not translated into commensurate gains for women.

PSC’s Brown Bag seminar series typically convenes Mondays at noon, at ISR Thompson Room 1430, and on Zoom.

https://umich.zoom.us/j/95418610585?pwd=Z0cvdkF1T0R2cG1lRDEvVmlnbVdlZz09

Meeting ID: 954 1861 0585
Passcode: 818420
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Meeting ID: 954 1861 0585
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Meeting ID: 954 1861 0585
Passcode: 818420

 

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Date
Oct 05 2026
Time
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Local Time

  • Timezone: America/New_York
  • Date: Oct 05 2026
  • Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Labels
Brown Bag seminars
Location
ISR Thompson Room 1430
Category

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