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on Gender |
| By: | Gallen, Yana (Harris School, University of Chicago); Wasserman, Melanie (University of California, Los Angeles) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates gender differences in access to informal information regarding the labor market. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek information from 10,000 working professionals about various career paths, and we randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. We focus the experimental design and analysis on two career attributes that prior research has shown to differentially affect the labor market choices of women: the extent to which a career accommodates work/life balance and has a competitive culture. When students ask broadly for information about a career, we find that female students receive substantially more information on work/life balance relative to male students. This gender difference persists when students disclose that they are concerned about work/life balance. In contrast, professionals mention workplace culture to male and female students at similar rates. After the study, female students are more dissuaded from their preferred career path than male students, and this difference is in part explained by professionals' greater emphasis on work/life balance when responding to female students. Finally, we elicit students' preferences for professionals and find that gender differences in information provision would remain if students contacted their most preferred professionals. |
| Keywords: | career information, gender, discrimination, correspondence study |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14072&r=all |
| By: | Jetter, Michael (University of Western Australia); Stockley, Kieran (University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | Although the gender gap in entrepreneurs' success rates to secure funding is staggering, we know little about its causes. This is because observing both sides of investor-entrepreneur interactions (especially for unsuccessful pitches) is difficult in reality, and the associated extraordinary stakes complicate appropriate simulations in the laboratory. Using comprehensive data of 4,893 interactions from the popular US television show Shark Tank, we test whether gender match with entrepreneurs can explain investors' likelihood to extend funding offers. We find female investors are 30% more likely to engage with female (rather than male) entrepreneurs, while no systematic gender preferences emerge for male investors. This result is exclusive to entrepreneurs in non-male-dominated product categories but disappears in male-dominated products. Estimates are robust to the inclusion of a comprehensive set of control variables (such as asking valuation, investor-, and season-fixed effects) and a range of alternative specifications. These findings from a field setting with large, real-life stakes provide empirical support for the industry representation hypothesis regarding the gender gap in venture capital funding. While results should be interpreted with caution, our findings suggest increased numbers of women in key venture capital positions could facilitate access to funds for female entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, our setting is not suited to fully explore associated efficiency considerations. |
| Keywords: | gender interaction effects, gender differences, venture capital financing, field data, high stakes bargaining |
| JEL: | D91 G11 G24 G41 J16 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14069&r=all |
| By: | Delaney, Judith (University of Bath); Devereux, Paul J. (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | There are two well-established gender gaps in education. First, females tend to have higher educational attainment and achievement than males and this is particularly the case for children from less advantaged backgrounds. Second, there are large differences in the fields of specialization chosen by males and females in college and even prior to college and females disproportionately enter less highly paid fields. This review article begins with these stylized facts and then moves on to describe evidence for the role of various factors in affecting educational achievement by gender. Gender differences in non-cognitive traits, behaviour, and interests have been shown to relate to differences in educational outcomes; however, this evidence cannot generally be given a causal interpretation. In contrast, the literature has been creative in estimating causal impacts of a wide range of factors using experimental and quasi-experimental variation. While the approaches are compelling, the findings vary widely across studies and are often contradictory. This may partly reflect methodological differences across studies but also may result from substantial true heterogeneity across educational systems and time periods. The review concludes by evaluating what factors are most responsible for the two central gender gaps, whether there is a role for policy to reduce these gender differences, and what the findings imply about the capacity for policy to tackle these gaps. |
| Keywords: | education, gender, schools, gender gaps, gender and educational achievement, gender and STEM |
| JEL: | I24 J16 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14074&r=all |
| By: | NoghaniBehambari, Hamid; Tavassoli, Nahid; noghani, farzaneh |
| Abstract: | This paper illustrates the intergenerational transmission of the gender gap in education among first and second-generation immigrants. Using the Current Population Survey (1994-2018), we find that the difference in female-male education persists from the home country to the new environment. A one standard deviation increase of the ancestral country’s female-male difference in schooling is associated with 17.2% and 2.5% of a standard deviation increase in the gender gap among first and second generations, respectively. Since gender perspective in education uncovers a new channel for cultural transmission among families, we interpret the findings as evidence of cultural persistence among first generations and partial cultural assimilation of second generations. Moreover, Disaggregation into country-groups reveals different paths for this transmission: descendants of immigrants of lower-income countries show fewer attachments to the gender opinions of their home country. Average local education of natives can facilitate the acculturation process. Immigrants residing in states with higher education reveal a lower tendency to follow their home country attitudes regarding the gender gap. |
| Keywords: | Gender Gap, Immigration, Human Capital, Education, Assimilation |
| JEL: | I2 J15 J16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:105265&r=all |
| By: | Borra, Cristina (University of Seville); Iacovou, Maria (University of Cambridge); Sevilla, Almudena (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Using different production function models, we study the causal association between adolescence development and the increase in the gap in math performance between boys and girls. We use data from the 1958 British National Child Development Study, a longitudinal survey of all British children born in the first week of March 1958, containing unique information on puberty development and educational outcomes from childhood into adolescence. We first document a widening of about 10 percent of a standard deviation in the gender gap in maths from primary to secondary school in the UK, and show that adolescent development contributes to explain almost two thirds of the widening of the math gender gap during the adolescence years. We also explore the mechanisms behind these effects. Our evidence regarding differences in the impact of puberty development by age, subject and self-perceived math ability suggests that both social conditions and biological factors are behind the estimated relationships between adolescent development and the increase in the gender gap in math in secondary school. |
| Keywords: | pubertal development, educational outcomes, gender gap in mathematics |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J16 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14077&r=all |
| By: | Michael Baker |
| Abstract: | While there is a large literature on gender differences in important childhood developmental inputs in developing countries, the evidence for developed countries is relatively limited. I investigate gender differences in some of these inputs in the US and Canada. In the US very low birthweight males face excess mortality compared to their female counterparts. I provide evidence that the previously documented increase in mortality with the withdrawal of critical care at the Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) threshold is primarily for boys. The fact that the critical care of both boys and girls changes discretely at this threshold suggests a possible misallocation of scarce hospital resources. In the US first born girls are breastfed longer than first born males, but the difference is so small that it is unlikely to have any consequence. Finally, mothers in the US and Canada are more likely to experience depression post birth when the first born child is a boy. Perhaps related, the parenting of first born boys in Canada in the first years of life is more likely to be confrontational. |
| JEL: | I14 J16 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28382&r=all |