Equity Norms Research Articles

Intersectionality of HIV Stigma with Female Identity: An Investigation among Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam.

Women living with HIV/AIDS (WLHA) in Vietnam encounter challenges stemming from HIV-related stigma and gender disparities. This study delves into the intersectionality of HIV-related stigma and gender disparities as perceived by WLHA. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 91 WLHA in Hanoi, Vietnam. Two sets of identically worded scales were used to measure awareness, agreement, and application of stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) and WLHA. A larger difference between stigma scores towards WLHA and that of PLHA represents a higher level of female-specific stigma. Univariate analyses and multiple regressions were conducted to identify demographic and psycho-social factors associated with the gendered differences in stigma measures. Multiple linear regression showed that WLHA who were currently married were more likely to apply stigma concepts to themselves due to gender identity (adjusted beta coefficient (aBeta Coef) = 0.223). Psychological capital was negatively associated with awareness of stigma towards female identity (aBeta Coef = -0.261). A higher perceived norm in women's equity and power was associated with less self-application of female-specific stigma (aBeta Coef = -0.294). Our findings underscore the importance of addressing psychological well-being and promoting gender equity norms as essential components in the efforts to reduce female-specific HIV-related stigma in WLHA.

Delivering PACE++ curriculum in community settings: Impact of TARA intervention on gender attitudes and dietary practices among adolescent girls in Bihar, India.

Adolescence phase has high intrinsic and instrumental relevance. The Transformative Action for Rural Adolescents intervention delivered PACE++ curriculum with innovations to introduce a) health and nutrition sessions and b) delivery of the content in community settings of rural Bihar. This paper examines impact of the intervention showcasing establishment of intergenerational community connect for empowering and invigorating adolescent girls on gender attitude, empowerment and adolescent health and nutrition. The impact evaluation is based on a two-arm (intervention and comparison groups) cluster randomized controlled design with two rounds of representative cross-sectional surveys. The baseline and endline sample comprised of 2327 and 2033 adolescent girls (15-19 years), respectively. Descriptive statistical, difference-in-differences and propensity score matching methods are used to confirm the program impact. The DID and PSM analyses confirm high significance of impact on gender equity norms, diets and nutritional knowledge and understanding of employee related rights and responsibilities. School-going adolescent girls performed better than those who have discontinued formal education. The intervention showcases the importance of delivering the modified PACE curriculum in rural settings through leveraging community platforms. The findings call for greater policy attention on scaling up of similar initiatives for empowerment and social capital development of adolescent girls.

Exploring relational norms in exporter-importer product innovation co-development: A qualitative study

This research investigates the role of relational norms in facilitating importers' engagement in product innovation co-development with exporters. Through a qualitative approach, we conducted interviews with top managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) involved in exporting activities in France. Guided by the theoretical framework of Relational Exchange Theory (Macneil, 1980; Dwyer et al., 1987), our study uncovers the significant potential for successful product innovation co-development when importers actively contribute as knowledge sources and co-developers. Additionally, we highlight the importance of cooperation, continuity expectations, and equity norms as external factors that shape the co-development process of new products between exporters and importers. By comprehending and embracing these relational norms, exporters can strengthen their collaborative endeavors with importers and effectively drive the co-development of innovative products.

Global South and Equity Norms: New Mechanism of Making Norms in the United Nations

Global South and Equity Norms: New Mechanism of Making Norms in the United Nations

Horizontal Equity: A Further Note

Writing some thirty years ago, I argued that "the requirements of horizontal and vertical equity are but different sides of the same coin. If there is no specified reason for discriminating among unequals, how can there be a reason for avoiding discrimination against equals?" The call for horizontal equity ("HE") without a vertical equity ("VE") rule, as I argued, is at best to be seen as a protection against arbitrary discrimination, a goal which could also be met by random taxation. I stayed with that view until Louis Kaplow's support of a similar position made me return to the issue. Perhaps a bit wiser if less clever, I then came to conclude that there was a case, after all, for recognizing HE as a distinct norm. Kaplow, responding in this Review, rejected my case as assuming what is to be proven. I am not persuaded and hence this further note.As I suggested in my paper, a distinction need be drawn between viewing the problem in a first best setting where taxes can be arranged so as to fully comply with equity norms and situations where, due to political or other constraints, the choice is among second best solutions. The same distinction is again drawn here.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) with Human Rights through European Legislation

The possibility that the court framework fills in as the essential stage for struggle settlement is disintegrating. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedures will generally spread and become more formalized. These systems incorporate causing to notice ADR and arrangement-based ADR (like intercession and appeasement) (like intervention). Inquisitively, notwithstanding these turns of events, two significant issues relating to ADR and proportionate compromise stay muddled in international human rights law (IHRL). The main arrangement of inquiries concerns the equity norms expected by ADR/PDR (whether entered deliberately or compulsorily). The key part is the lawful prerequisites that might expect gatherings to a debate to utilize ADR/PDR rather than, or under the watchful eye of, going to court.

Equitable data sharing in epidemics and pandemics

BackgroundRapid data sharing can maximize the utility of data. In epidemics and pandemics like Zika, Ebola, and COVID-19, the case for such practices seems especially urgent and warranted. Yet rapidly sharing data widely has previously generated significant concerns related to equity. The continued lack of understanding and guidance on equitable data sharing raises the following questions: Should data sharing in epidemics and pandemics primarily advance utility, or should it advance equity as well? If so, what norms comprise equitable data sharing in epidemics and pandemics? Do these norms address the equity-related concerns raised by researchers, data providers, and other stakeholders? What tensions must be balanced between equity and other values?MethodsTo explore these questions, we undertook a systematic scoping review of the literature on data sharing in epidemics and pandemics and thematically analyzed identified literature for its discussion of ethical values, norms, concerns, and tensions, with a particular (but not exclusive) emphasis on equity. We wanted to both understand how equity in data sharing is being conceptualized and draw out other important values and norms for data sharing in epidemics and pandemics.ResultsWe found that values of utility, equity, solidarity, and reciprocity were described, and we report their associated norms, including researcher recognition; rapid, real-time sharing; capacity development; and fair benefits to data generators, data providers, and source countries. The value of utility and its associated norms were discussed substantially more than others. Tensions between utility norms (e.g., rapid, real-time sharing) and equity norms (e.g., researcher recognition, equitable access) were raised.ConclusionsThis study found support for equity being advanced by data sharing in epidemics and pandemics. However, norms for equitable data sharing in epidemics and pandemics require further development, particularly in relation to power sharing and participatory approaches prioritizing inclusion. Addressing structural inequities in the wider global health landscape is also needed to achieve equitable data sharing in epidemics and pandemics.

What to expect from opening up ‘black boxes’? Comparing perceptions of justice between human and automated agents

Advances in artificial intelligence contribute to increasing automation of decisions. In a healthcare-scheduling context, this study compares effects of decision agents and explanations for decisions on decision-recipients’ perceptions of justice. In a 2 (decision agent: automated vs. human) × 3 (explanation: no explanation vs. equality-explanation vs. equity-explanation) between-subjects online study, 209 healthcare professionals were asked to put themselves in a situation where their vacation request was denied by either a human or an automated agent. Participants either received no explanation or an explanation based on equality or equity norms. Perceptions of interpersonal justice were stronger for the human agent. Additionally, participants perceived human agents as offering more voice and automated agents as being more consistent in decision-making. When given no explanation, perceptions of informational justice were impaired only for the human decision agent. In the study's second part, participants took the perspective of a decision-maker and were given the choice to delegate decision-making to an automated system. Participants who delegated an unpleasant decision to the system frequently externalized responsibility and showed different response patterns when confronted by a decision-recipient who asked for a rationale for the decision.

Fair payments for effective environmental conservation

Global efforts for biodiversity protection and land use-based greenhouse gas mitigation call for increases in the effectiveness and efficiency of environmental conservation. Incentive-based policy instruments are key tools for meeting these goals, yet their effectiveness might be undermined by such factors as social norms regarding whether payments are considered fair. We investigated the causal link between equity and conservation effort with a randomized real-effort experiment in forest conservation with 443 land users near a tropical forest national park in the Vietnamese Central Annamites, a global biodiversity hotspot. The experiment introduced unjustified payment inequality based on luck, in contradiction of local fairness norms that were measured through responses to vignettes. Payment inequality was perceived as less fair than payment equality. In agreement with our preregistered hypotheses, participants who were disadvantaged by unequal payments exerted significantly less conservation effort than other participants receiving the same payment under an equal distribution. No effect was observed for participants advantaged by inequality. Thus, equity effects on effort can have consequences for the effectiveness and efficiency of incentive-based conservation instruments. Furthermore, we show that women exerted substantially more conservation effort than men, and that increasing payment size unexpectedly reduced effort. This emphasizes the need to consider social comparisons, local equity norms, and gender in environmental policies using monetary incentives to motivate behavioral change.

On the emergence of minority disadvantage: testing the cultural Red King hypothesis

The study of social justice asks: what sorts of social arrangements are equitable ones? But also: how do we derive the inequitable arrangements we often observe in human societies? In particular, in spite of explicitly stated equity norms, categorical inequity tends to be the rule rather than the exception. The cultural Red King hypothesis predicts that differentials in group size may lead to inequitable outcomes for minority groups even in the absence of explicit or implicit bias. We test this prediction in an experimental context where subjects divided into groups engage in repeated play of a bargaining game. We ran 14 trials involving a total of 112 participants. The results of the experiments are statistically significant and suggestive: individuals in minority groups in these experiments end up receiving fewer resources than those in majority groups. Combined with previous theoretical findings, these results give some reason to think that the cultural Red King may occur in real human groups.

The origin of wealth matters: Equity norms trump equality norms in the ultimatum game with earned endowments

We conduct an ultimatum game with three treatments: one in which endowments are earned through a real effort task (answering spelling questions under time pressure), one in which endowments are awarded through lotteries, and a standard ultimatum game with exogenously provided wealth. When subjects earn the money at stake, the modal response ceases to be an equal split, as proposals anchor around comparative earnings and these proposals are statistically different from those observed in the other treatments. Moreover, roughly half of lower earners propose keeping less than 50% of the pot for themselves. We argue that these results are best explained by Bicchieri’s account of norms and that equity, rather than equality, becomes the dominant norm in ultimatum bargaining when endowments are earned.

The path to cooperative action during group social dilemmas: A literature review, set of propositions, and model describing how the opportunity to communicate encourages cooperation

A social dilemma is a circumstance in which each of an aggregate of people must make an individual decision whether to acquire a short-term benefit for themselves or to forego some of that benefit for the long-term benefit of the aggregate. The intent of this essay is to describe how communication, in terms of both the opportunity to talk and the content of what is said, interacts with other “cooperative mechanisms” – group identity, reciprocity and equity norms, and trust and trustworthiness – to largely determine individual cooperation versus defection. Two variables with relatively complex impacts on the cooperative mechanisms – social value orientation and group size – are also discussed. A model and set of propositions relating these variables are also included, and areas for further are explored.

Moral Entitlements and Aspiration Formation in Asymmetric Bargaining: Experimental Evidence from Germany and China

Using a unique experimental data set, we investigate how asymmetric legal rights shape bargainers’ aspiration levels through moral entitlements derived from equity norms and number prominence. Aspiration formation is typically hard to observe in real life. Our study involves 15 negotiations from Germany and China. Over the course of the negotiation, bargainers discuss the distribution of an amount of money by alternating offers until they consent or break off. Legal rights are randomly assigned by asymmetric outside options. We videotape and code the in-group discussions. In total, verbal data from 30 groups, 1100 pages of transcripts, and 65 h of discussions are content-analyzed. Our main finding is that strong groups derive and defend moral entitlements from equity concerns with regard to their outside options. They strive for equitable but unequal distributions (e.g., proportional split and split the difference). Moral entitlements materialize in the recorded aspiration levels and final payoffs, which exceed the equal split. By contrast, weak groups aim at equality. Over the course of the negotiation, equity tends to lose, while the prominence of round numbers gains importance. Similarities between the subject pools are found in that equity and prominence are both decisive for the formation of aspiration levels. Chinese negotiations are characterized by long periods of stagnation, only minimal concessions, and the communication of false goals. By contrast, Germans steadily reduce their goals and make concessions.

Gender equity predicts condom use among adolescent and young adult parents in Toronto, Canada

Adolescents and young adults have higher rates of sexually transmitted infections (STI) than any other age cohort in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The sub-population of young parents is at even higher risk for acquiring STIs than the general population of adolescents and young adults. The purpose of this study was to determine whether and how co-parenting relationship functioning and gender equitable attitudes were associated with condom use among adolescent and young adult parents. We conducted a cross-sectional survey with 102 non-married adolescent and young adult parents in Toronto. Study participants used iPads to self-administer the co-parenting relationship scale, gender equitable men scale, and a sexual behaviour battery regarding their condom use during the last episode of sexual intercourse (including vaginal and anal). Logistic regression was used to determine whether scale scores predicted condom use at last intercourse, adjusting for age and sex. t-tests were performed to assess group mean differences in gender equitable attitudes and co-parenting relationship functioning between condom users and nonusers and between mothers and fathers. We observed that co-parenting relationship functioning was not associated with condom use behaviours. Instead, gender equitable attitudes predicted condom use in the overall sample (AOR=1.13; 95% CI 1.03, 1.25, p<0.05). Fathers who used condoms at last intercourse had higher gender equitable attitude scores than fathers who did not use condoms (M=58 vs. 53, p=0.02). Mothers' gender equitable attitude scores were not associated with condom use behaviours. Attitudes that support gender equity attitudes predict condom use among young parents, particularly among young fathers. Sexual risk reduction programs targeting young parents may benefit from incorporating components that promote gender equity norms.

Age-Based Hiring Discrimination as a Function of Equity Norms and Self-Perceived Objectivity

Participants completed a questionnaire priming them to perceive themselves as either objective or biased, either before or after evaluating a young or old job applicant for a position linked to youthful stereotypes. Participants agreed that they were objective and tended to disagree that they were biased. Extending past research, both the objective and bias priming conditions led to an increase in age discrimination compared to the control condition. We also investigated whether equity norms reduced age discrimination, by manipulating the presence or absence of an equity statement reminding decision-makers of the legal prohibitions against discrimination “on the basis of age, disability, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, or sex.” The presence of equity norms increased enthusiasm for both young and old applicants when participants were not already primed to think of themselves as objective, but did not reduce age-based hiring discrimination. Equity norms had no effect when individuals thought of themselves as objective – they preferred the younger more than the older job applicant. However, the presence of equity norms did affect individuals’ perceptions of which factors were important to their hiring decisions, increasing the perceived importance of applicants’ expertise and decreasing the perceived importance of the applicants’ age. The results suggest that interventions that rely exclusively on decision-makers' intentions to behave equitably may be ineffective.

Agnes Michelot (ed.). Equite et environnement. Quel(s) modele(s) de justice environnementale?

This book (in French except for the short English contribution by Laura Westra) collects the papers that were presented at the Annual Conference of the French Society for Environmental Law in December 2010. The contributions aim at answering a set of three questions: what is the content of environmental justice as a concept? Is environmental justice endorsed by positive law? What are the perspectives of environmental justice? The first part addresses the issue of equity as the source of environmental justice; the second part is devoted to the instruments of environmental justice, and particularly focuses on those instruments that address equity concerns. In the third part the focus lies on the actors of environmental justice and the relationship between environmental governance and equity. This part directly addresses the relationship between equity and legal norms. More particularly, the five contributions in this part cover the issues of legal norms' coordination, evaluation, validity, and decision-making processes. The fourth and last part questions the realizability of environmental justice at the international level. Because of de facto inequalities, the international society is a priori an ideal field to question, apply, and identify perspectives for environmental justice. As with any collection of conference papers (and despite the guarantee of quality offered by the French Society for Environmental Law) one may wonder about the added value of such a book. Indeed, there exists already a wealth of literature that covers issues of environmental justice, equity, and related concepts (for example, responsibilities towards future generations and sustainable development). However, this book clearly adds to this literature. �

More equal than others: Equity norms as an integration of cognitive heuristics and contextual cues in bargaining games

Behavior in one-shot bargaining games, like the Ultimatum Game (UG), has been interpreted as an expression of social preferences, such as inequity aversion and negative reciprocity; however, the traditional UG design limits the range of possible psychological interpretation of the results. Here, we employed three different designs for ultimatum games, finding support for a more comprehensive theory: behavior is driven by cognitive factors implementing rules such as equal splitting, speaking up for the idea that equity works as a cognitive heuristic, applicable when the environment provides no reason to behave otherwise. Instead subjects deviate from this rule when environment changes, as, for instance, when personal interest is at stake.Results show that behavior varies systematically with contextual cues, balancing the self-interest with the automatic application of the equity heuristic. Thus, the context suggests the rule to be applied in a specific situation.

Forum: Principled Strategy: The Role of Equity Norms in China's Climate Change Diplomacy

Through more than two decades of multilateral climate change negotiations, China has steadfastly opposed emission limits for developing countries. Scholars have traditionally explained the rigidity of Chinese diplomacy with reference to economic interests and power, and in the process understated the importance of equity norms. In international negotiations, China has served as one of the key architects and promoters of the common but differentiated responsibility principle, which holds that global environmental justice requires that developed countries bear the primary obligation for combating climate change. China has used this principle strategically in order to legitimize its opposition to emission limits. However, China's negotiating stance cannot be defined simply as the instrumental use of norms, as Beijing is genuinely sensitive to issues of equity. These equity concerns have occasionally led China to act in a manner that, from a strict cost-benefit analysis, runs counter to its own economic interests. In sum, notions of environmental justice are simultaneously a tool China uses to pursue its interests and a force that structures China's interest.

Political Quid Pro Quo Agreements: An Experimental Study

We experimentally study the common wisdom that money buys political influence. In the game, one special interest (i.e., a corporate firm) has the opportunity to influence redistributive tax policies in her favor by transferring money to two competing candidates. The success of the investment depends on whether or not the candidates are willing and able to collude on low‐tax policies that do not harm their relative chances in the elections. In the experiment, successful political influence never materializes when the firm and candidates interact just once. By contrast, it yields substantially lower redistribution in about 40% of societies with finitely repeated encounters. However, investments are not always profitable, and profit sharing between the firm and candidates depends on prominent equity norms. Our experimental results shed new light on the complex process of buying political influence in everyday politics and help explain why only relatively few firms do actually attempt to influence policymaking.

The Division of Paid Labor in Same-Sex Couples in the Netherlands

This study examines the division of paid labor among gay male and lesbian couples in the Netherlands. We hypothesize that same-sex couples have a more equal division of paid labor than different-sex couples, partly because of lower marriage and fertility rates, and partly because equity norms are more strongly embraced regardless of family stage. Furthermore, we expect that traditional gender roles result in more hours of paid work by gay male couples than lesbian couples. Descriptive and OLS regression analyses are carried out on 13 waves of the Dutch Labor Force Surveys (1994–2007), which include 998 gay male couples and 1,033 lesbian couples. Results support all hypotheses: same-sex couples divide paid labor more equally than different-sex couples; lesbian couples specialize less after marriage or childbirth; and gay male couples work more hours than lesbian couples. We discuss how our findings can be translated across countries.