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Julia Melin

Tuck School of Business

With a Little Help from My (Girl) Friends: Field Evidence on Gender Homophily and Women鈥檚 Training Outcomes in Remote Environments

Julia L. Melin (Tuck School of Business), Tiantian Yang (The Wharton School), and Sofoklis Goulas (Yale University

Date: Friday October 10, 2025
Time:10:30 AM -12:00 PM
Location: Virtual (ZOOM)

All are cordially invited to attend.

Abstract:

How does peer-group gender composition influence women鈥檚 professional development in remote environments? While research on networks highlights the benefits of cross-gender ties, studies of educational and training contexts emphasize the socialization benefits of gender-homogeneous groups. We use remote training as a novel context to reconcile these perspectives and clarify the conditions under which same-gender peer groups are most beneficial for women. We theorize that remote training environments heighten barriers to interpersonal relationships and lack structural incentives for collaboration. As such, all-women peer groups confer unique benefits by fostering identity-based trust, enabling mutual assistance that facilitates career advancement. We test our prediction in an 18-month randomized field experiment on a leading online career training platform, leveraging random assignment of over 2,700 unemployed women to gender-homophilous (all-women) or gender-heterophilous (mixed-gender) virtual peer groups. Results show that women in gender-homophilous groups were significantly more likely to complete their training on time and earn professional certification within a year of program initiation. Gender homophily also significantly improved women鈥檚 likelihood of securing in-field employment following program completion and certification. Comparing men in mixed-gender groups with higher versus lower male representation showed no improvements, suggesting that the benefits of gender homophily may be specific to women. Supplemental qualitative analyses reveal that these advantages unfold through a process characterized by all-women groups (1) disclosing multiple shared identities, (2) building affect-based trust, and (3) exchanging expressive and instrumental resources. This study provides the first causal evidence on how peer gender composition influences individual career goal attainment in remote training and illuminates the micro-group processes that drive these effects.