Women are less likely to ask for deadline extensions on work and school tasks, according to a recent study by The Ohio State University’s (OSU) Fisher College of Business.
The data includes nine studies that involve more than 5,000 participants. In one study, a discussion paper was assigned to 103 students in an undergraduate business course with a one-week deadline. The students were told they can ask for an extension on the paper via email with no consequences. As a result, 36 men students asked for an extension compared to 15 percent of women students, making men twice as likely to ask for a time adjustment.
“Women understandably feel like they have too many things to do and not enough time to do them. We found that not asking for more time to complete tasks undermines women’s well-being and also their performance,” Grant Donnelly, co-author of the study and assistant professor of marketing at OSU Fisher College of Business, said in a press statement.
However, the study did find women and men are equally likely to ask for an extension at organizations that have formal deadline extension requests.
