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on Gender |
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Issue of 2025–06–09
five papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Eriksson, Tor (Aarhus University); Smith, Nina (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | Despite considerable changes in the gender gap regarding educational qualifications and labor force participation, the share of female managers has changed only slowly and continues to be low. This paper adds new evidence to the study of the dearth of women in top managerial positions in firms by documenting and analyzing data on beliefs about own managerial abilities collected from survey of a large sample of Danish managers. We develop measures for gender stereotype attitudes and beliefs about ability, distinguishing between masculine and feminine skills, and examine whether these are correlated with each other and differ by gender. We find that especially female C-level managers differ substantially from managers at levels below. Female medium and lower-level managers’ beliefs in own ability is lower than for their male peers for two reasons: weaker prescriptive gender stereotype attitudes and lower miscalculation of abilities, possibly less overconfidence. The weaker ability beliefs contribute to reduced self-confidence and career ambitions and to the explanations for the lack of women in top positions. |
| Keywords: | managerial labor markets, career aspirations, agentic and communal skills, gender stereotypes, beliefs about own ability |
| JEL: | J16 D83 D84 M51 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17921 |
| By: | Buzard, Kristy (Syracuse University); Gee, Laura Katherine (Tufts University); Stoddard, Olga B. (Brigham Young University) |
| Abstract: | Gender imbalance in time spent on child rearing causes gender inequalities in labor market outcomes, human capital accumulation, and economic mobility. We conduct a large-scale field experiment with a near-universe of US schools to investigate a potential source of this inequality: external demands for parental involvement. Schools receive an email from a fictitious two-parent household with a general inquiry and are asked to call one of the parents back. Mothers are 1.4 times more likely than fathers to be contacted. We decompose this inequality into discrimination stemming from differential beliefs about parents’ responsiveness versus other factors and demonstrate that the gender gap in external demands is associated with various measures of gender norms. We also show that signaling father's availability substantially changes the gender pattern of callbacks. Our findings underscore a process through which agents outside the household contribute to within-household gender inequalities. |
| Keywords: | field experiment, gender gap, discrimination |
| JEL: | J16 J71 C93 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17922 |
| By: | David Card (University of California, Berkeley); Francesco Devicienti (University of Torino and Collegio Carlo Alberto); Mariacristina Rossi (COVIP); Andrea Weber (Central European University) |
| Abstract: | The gender wage gap rises with experience. To what extent do firm policies mediate this rise? We use administrative data from Italy to identify workers’ first jobs and compute wage growth over the next 5 years. We then decompose the contribution of first employers to the rise in the gender wage gap, taking account of maternity events affecting a third of female entrants. We find that idiosyncratic firm effects explain 20% of the variation in early career wage growth, and that the sorting of women to slower-growth firms accounts for a fifth of the gender growth gap. Women who have a child within 5 years of entering work have particularly slow wage growth, reflecting a maternity effect that is magnified by the excess sorting of mothers-to-be to slower-growth firms. Many entrants change jobs within their first 5 years and we find that the male-female difference in early career wage growth arises from gaps for both movers and stayers. The firm components in wage growth for stayers and movers are highly correlated, and contribute similar sorting penalties for women who stay or leave. |
| Keywords: | Gender gaps; Firm effects; Maternity; Matched Employer-Employee Data |
| JEL: | J00 J23 J24 J31 J38 J58 L13 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2510 |
| By: | Xiao Ma (Peking University); Alejandro Nakab (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella); Camila Navajas-Ahumada (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella); Daniela Vidart (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | Women experience slower wage growth than men over their lifetimes, a gap often attributed to the “motherhood wage penalty, ” as childbearing reduces earnings. This paper links this penalty to differences in human capital using a pseudo-event study of first childbirth in Europe to document a “mother-hood training penalty.” Before parenthood, full-time male and female work-ers exhibit similar on-the-job training trends, but their trajectories diverge afterward. In the first 1–3 years of parenthood, women are 17%–22% less likely to train, compared to a 3%–8% decline for men. Additional evidence suggests this gap reflects employers’ lower willingness to finance training for mothers. |
| Keywords: | On-the-Job Training, Human Capital Accumulation, Lifecycle Wage Growth, Gender Gaps |
| JEL: | J24 J16 M53 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2025-04 |
| By: | David Dorn (University of Zurich); Florian Schoner (University of Munich, ifo Institute); Moritz Seebacher (University of Munich, ifo Institute); Lisa Simon (Revelio Labs); Ludger Woessmann (LMU Munich, ifo Institute) |
| Abstract: | We measure human capital using the self-reported skill sets of nearly 9 million U.S. college graduates from professional profiles on LinkedIn. We aggregate skill strings into 48 clusters of general, occupation-specific, and managerial skills. Multidimensional skills can account for several important labor-market patterns. First, the number and composition of skills are systematically related to measures of human-capital investment such as education and work experience. The number of skills increases with experience, and the average age-skill profile closely resembles the well-established concave age-earnings profile. Second, workers who report more skills, especially specific and managerial ones, hold higher-paid jobs. Skill differences account for more earnings variation than detailed measures of education and experience. Third, we document a sizable gender gap in skills. While women and men report nearly equal numbers of skills shortly after college graduation, women’s skill count increases more slowly with age subsequently. A simple quantitative exercise shows that women’s slower skill accumulation can be fully accounted for by reduced work hours associated with motherhood. The resulting gender differences in skills rationalize a substantial proportion of the gender gap in job-based earnings. |
| Keywords: | skills; human capital; gender; education; experience; social media; online professional network; labor market; tasks; earnings; |
| JEL: | I26 J16 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–06–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:533 |