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on Gender |
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Issue of 2024‒05‒06
six papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Katherine B. Coffman; Scott Kostyshak; Perihan O. Saygin; Katie Coffman |
| Abstract: | Most studies of gender discrimination consider how male versus female candidates are assessed given otherwise identical information about them. But, in many settings of interest, evaluators have a choice about how much information to acquire about a candidate before making a final assessment. We use a large controlled experiment to explore how this type of endogenous information acquisition amplifies discriminatory outcomes in a simulated hiring environment. Across evaluators, we vary the composition of candidate pools, exploring not only environments where men outperform women on average but also environments with no gender difference or with a female advantage. Perhaps surprisingly, we observe no gender discrimination overall: conditional on their likelihood of being qualified, male and female candidates receive indistinguishable evaluations. But, we observe important differences across candidate pools. Candidates belonging to an advantaged group—the gender with the performance advantage in the pool—receive significantly better evaluations than equally qualified candidates in pools with no gender gap in performance. Similarly, candidates belonging to a disadvantaged group—the gender with a performance disadvantage in the pool—receive significantly worse evaluations relative to equally qualified candidates in pools with no gender gap in performance. This “relative advantage” bias appears in initial assessments, influences how evaluators update their beliefs about a candidate after acquiring more information, and persists in final evaluations. This bias has a significantly larger impact on evaluations when evaluators endogenously acquire information compared to treatments where we exogenously provide it, in part because we observe significant under-acquisition of information. We show that this bias leads to two important types of mistakes: evaluators miss out on talented candidates from disadvantaged groups and over-select less talented candidates from advantaged groups. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, information acquisition, beliefs, belief updating, stereotypes |
| JEL: | J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11024&r=gen |
| By: | Delaney, Judith M. (University of Bath); Devereux, Paul J. (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | While gender differences in the decision of what to study at undergraduate level are much studied, there is relatively little attention paid to subsequent study decisions of graduates. Given the increased importance of graduate education in recent decades, these decisions can have major labour market implications. In this paper, we use administrative data from Ireland to study these choices. We find systematic and substantial differences by gender in choice of graduate field, even when taking account of the exact undergraduate programme attended and a large set of controls measuring academic interests and aptitudes. Female graduates are less likely to do further study in STEM fields and more likely to enter teaching and health programmes. When we explore the effect of these choices on early career gender gaps in earnings, we find that they tend to exacerbate earnings gaps. Even after accounting for the exact undergraduate programme and detailed school subject choices and grades, there is an 8% gender gap in earnings at age 33 for persons who pursued a graduate degree; the choice of graduate programme can explain about 15% of that gap. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, graduate study, field of study, gender earnings gap, higher education |
| JEL: | J16 J24 I21 I23 I24 I26 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16918&r=gen |
| By: | Koopmans, Pim (Leiden University); van Lent, Max (Leiden University); Been, Jim (University of Leiden) |
| Abstract: | The consequence of the arrival of children for the gender wage gap - known as the child penalty - is substantial and has been documented for many countries. Little is still known about the impact of having children beyond paid work in the labor market, such as home production. In this paper we estimate - deploying an event study with Dutch survey data - the child penalty in both home production and the labor market. In line with the literature we find no labor market effects for men. For women we find a strong reduction in work hours and lower wages. However, we find an increase in home production for women roughly similar to the decline in paid work. Consequently, time allocated to the labor market plus home production is roughly equal across gender before and after the arrival of children. This result rejects the hypothesis that women substitute paid work for leisure after the arrival of children. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, child penalty, intra-household allocation, event study, home production |
| JEL: | C33 D12 D13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16871&r=gen |
| By: | Fang HE (The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training) |
| Abstract: | Empirical research has shown that marriage and parenthood have positive effects on men fs wages but adverse effects on the wages of women. This is particularly true in Japan. This paper examined the impact of marriage and parenthood on the gender wage gap within-couple. Panel survey data on detailed demographic and economic information are used in the estimation, with a focus on wage changes from marriage and parenthood over time. To analyze the different dimensions of gwage, h annual labor income and wage rate are used as the wage index in the estimation. The estimation results show that, when taking husband fs wage as a comparative subject, women fs wage is negatively affected by marriage and parenthood, which reflects an increase in the wage gap within-couple over time. The magnitude of parenthood effects on the wage gap within-couple depends on the changes in employment status before and after childbirth. |
| Keywords: | Wage gap, Marriage, Parenthood, Japan |
| JEL: | J31 J38 D13 |
| Date: | 2024–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:keo:dpaper:2024-008&r=gen |
| By: | Seyberth, Lilo; Overwien, Anja |
| Abstract: | Unternehmertum ist eine wichtige wirtschaftliche Quelle für jedes Land. Allerdings ist der Anteil weiblicher Unternehmer immer noch gering und in den meisten Ländern besteht eine Kluft zwischen den Geschlechtern im Unternehmertum, was bedeutet, dass Wachstumspotential ungenutzt bleibt. Wir stützen uns auf frühere Erkenntnisse in der Literatur des (Frauen-)Unternehmertums, bauen auf der Theorie des sozialen Lernens (Bandura 1973) auf und argumentieren, dass Vorbilder positiv mit dem Ziel einer Person verbunden sind, Unternehmerin zu werden. Um das aktuelle Verständnis der Förderung von Unternehmertum durch Vorbilder zu erweitern, unterscheiden wir verschiedene Arten von Vorbildern. Wir gehen davon aus, dass unterschiedliche Vorbilder unterschiedliche Auswirkungen auf die unternehmerische Absicht und das unternehmerische Verhalten von Studentinnen haben. Um diese Hypothesen empirisch zu untersuchen, stützen wir uns auf Querschnittsbefragungsdaten von 2.237 Studierenden aus 127 Hochschulen in Deutschland. Unsere Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass unternehmerische Vorbilder dazu beitragen können, Geschlechterunterschiede zu verringern, und unterstreichen die Bedeutung unternehmerischer Vorbilder sowohl für die Absicht von Frauen, Unternehmerinnen zu werden, als auch dafür, dass sie dies tatsächlich umsetzen. Bei der Untersuchung verschiedener Vorbildtypen stellen wir außerdem fest, dass es einen größeren Effekt gibt, wenn unternehmerische Vorbilder innerhalb der Familie vorhanden sind, insbesondere bei engeren familiären Bindungen. |
| Abstract: | Entrepreneurship is an important economic source for any country. However, the share of female entrepreneurs is still low with an entrepreneurial gender gap in most countries, meaning growth potential remains untapped. Relying on previous findings in the (women) entrepreneurship literature, we build on social learning theory (Bandura 1973) and argue that role models positively relate to an individual's aim to become an entrepreneur. To broaden the current understanding of role models' promotion of entrepreneurship, we distinguish different types of role models. We hypothesize that different role models have different effects on female students' entrepreneurial intention and behaviour. To investigate these hypotheses empirically, we rely on cross-sectional survey data of 2, 237 students from 127 higher education institutions in Germany. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurial role models can help reduce gender gaps, highlighting the importance of entrepreneurial role models for the intention of women to become entrepreneurs as well as them actually doing so. Investigating different role model types, we further find a larger effect for having entrepreneurial role models within the family, especially closer familial ties. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, Gender, Germany, Role Models, Social Learning Theory |
| JEL: | D91 J16 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:umiodp:289597&r=gen |
| By: | Carolina Biliotti; Massimo Riccaboni; Luca Verginer |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of new research opportunities on the long-standing under-representation of women in medical and academic leadership by assessing the impact of the emergence of COVID-19 as a new research topic in the life sciences on women's authorship. After collecting publication data from 2019 and 2020 on biomedical publications, where the position of first and last author is most important for future career development, we use the major Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms to identify the main research area of each publication and measure the relation of each paper to COVID-19. Using a Difference-in-Difference approach, we find that although the general female authorship trend is upwards, papers in areas related to COVID-19 are less likely to have a woman as first or last author compared to research areas not related to COVID-19. Conversely, new publication opportunities in the COVID-19 research field increase the proportion of women in middle, less-relevant, author positions. Stay-at-home mandates, journal importance, and access to new funds do not fully explain the drop in women's outcomes. The decline in female first authorship is related to the increase of teams in which both lead authors have no prior experience in the COVID-related research field. In addition, pre-existing publishing teams show reduced bias in female key authorship with respect to new teams specifically formed for COVID-related research. This suggests that opportunistic teams, transitioning into research areas with emerging interests, possess greater flexibility in choosing the primary and final authors, potentially reducing uncertainties associated with engaging in productions divergent from their past scientific experiences by excluding women scientists from key authorship positions. |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2404.04707&r=gen |