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on Gender |
| By: | Michael Thaler |
| Abstract: | Men and women systematically differ in their beliefs about their performance relative to others; in particular, men tend to be more overconfident. This paper provides support for one explanation for gender differences in overconfidence, performance-motivated reasoning, in which people distort how they process new information in ways that make them believe they outperformed others. Using a large online experiment, I find that male subjects distort information processing to favor their performance, while female subjects do not systematically distort information processing in either direction. These statistically-significant gender differences in performance-motivated reasoning mimic gender differences in overconfidence; beliefs of male subjects are systematically overconfident, while beliefs of female subjects are well-calibrated on average. The experiment also includes political questions, and finds that politically-motivated reasoning is similar for both men and women. These results suggest that, while men and women are both susceptible to motivated reasoning in general, men find it particularly attractive to believe that they outperformed others. |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2012.01538&r=all |
| By: | D'Exelle, Ben (University of East Anglia); Gutekunst, Christine (University of East Anglia); Riedl, Arno (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | Men and women negotiate differently, which might create gender inequality in access to resources as well as efficiency losses due to disagreement. We study the role of gender and gender pairing in bilateral bargaining, using a lab-in-the-field experiment in which pairs of participants bargain over the division of a fixed amount of resources. We vary the gender composition of the bargaining pairs as well as the disclosure of the participants' identities. We find gender differences in earnings, agreement and demands, but only when the identities are disclosed. Women in same-gender pairs obtain higher earnings than men and women in mixed-gender pairs. This is the result of the lower likelihood of disagreement among women-only pairs. Women leave more on the bargaining table, conditional on their beliefs, which contributes to the lower disagreement and higher earnings among women-only pairs. |
| Keywords: | bargaining, gender, gender pairing, beliefs, experiment |
| JEL: | C9 J16 O12 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13916&r=all |
| By: | Henrik Kleven; Camille Landais; Johanna Posch; Andreas Steinhauer; Josef Zweimüller |
| Abstract: | Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and child care, using administrative data covering the labor market and birth histories of Austrian workers over more than half a century. We start by quasi-experimentally identifying the causal effects of all family policy reforms since the 1950s on the full dynamics of male and female earnings. We then map these causal estimates into a decomposition framework a la Kleven, Landais and Søgaard (2019) to compute counterfactual gender gaps. Our results show that the enormous expansions of parental leave and child care subsidies have had virtually no impact on gender convergence. |
| JEL: | H31 H42 J08 J13 J16 J18 J22 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28082&r=all |
| By: | Li, Jiang (Statistics Canada); Dostie, Benoit (HEC Montreal); Simard-Duplain, Gaëlle (University of British Columbia) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database between 2001 and 2015, we examine the impact of firms' hiring and pay-setting policies on the gender earnings gap in Canada. Consistent with the existing literature and following Card, Cardoso, and Kline (2016), we find that firm-specific premiums explain nearly one quarter of the 26.8% average earnings gap between female and male workers. On average, firms' hiring practices – due to difference in the relative proportion of women hired at high-wage firms, or sorting – and pay-setting policies – due to differences in pay by gender within similar firms – each explain about one half of this firm effect. The compositional difference between the two channels varies substantially over the life-cycle, by parental and marital status, and across provinces. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, firm effects, marital status, linked employer-employee data, pay-setting, sorting |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J51 J71 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13907&r=all |
| By: | Breda, Thomas (Paris School of Economics); Jouini, Elyès (Université Paris-Dauphine); Napp, Clotilde (CNRS); Thebault, Georgia (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The so-called "gender-equality paradox" is the fact that gender segregation across occupations is more pronounced in more egalitarian and more developed countries. Some scholars have explained this paradox by the existence of deeply rooted or intrinsic gender differences in preferences that materialize more easily in countries where economic constraints are more limited. In line with a strand of research in sociology, we show instead that it can be explained by cross-country differences in essentialist gender norms regarding math aptitudes and appropriate occupational choices. To this aim, we propose a measure of the prevalence and extent of internalization of the stereotype that "math is not for girls" at the country level. This is done using individual-level data on the math attitudes of 300,000 15-year-old female and male students in 64 countries. The stereotype associating math to men is stronger in more egalitarian and developed countries. It is also strongly associated with various measures of female underrepresentation in math intensive fields and can therefore entirely explain the gender-equality paradox. We suggest that economic development and gender equality in rights go hand-in-hand with a reshaping rather than a suppression of gender norms, with the emergence of new and more horizontal forms of social differentiation across genders. |
| Keywords: | gender equality, stereotypes, female underrepresentation in math |
| JEL: | I24 I25 J16 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13904&r=all |