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on Gender |
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Issue of 2026–11–02
eight papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Harbring, Christine (RWTH Aachen University); Simons, Stella (RWTH Aachen University) |
| Abstract: | In Germany, the gross hourly income of men was 6 % higher than that of women in 2025 when controlling for factors such as profession or qualifications. One possible explanation for the remaining gender pay gap may be gender differences in salary expectations and negotiations. Therefore, we examine whether gender differences exist in employees’ self-set salaries and if so, we explore potential reasons behind them. Identifying gender differences in the comparatively simplified context of self-set salaries could provide valuable insights beyond the complexities of negotiation scenarios. In particular, we investigate whether providing sub-jects with information about the average salary of men – thereby offering pay transparency – impacts self-set salaries (individual vs. transparency treatment). Furthermore, we examine how salaries are set when there is a direct comparison to another worker, and when the self-set salary affects another worker’s salary (individual vs. group treatment). Results clearly show that women set lower salaries than men in the individual treatment. However, no significant gender differences are observed in the transparency or group treatment. |
| Keywords: | gender differences, self-set salaries, gender pay gap, pay transparency, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C91 M5 J16 K38 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp19009 |
| By: | Francine D. Blau; Lawrence Kahn; Freddy Bachmann; Helen Burkhardt; Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco; David Titus |
| Abstract: | We use Luxembourg Income Study and International Social Survey Programme microdata on 27 countries over the 1986-2019 period, augmented by policy and labor market information, to estimate the impact of family-friendly policies on gender gaps in employment, wages, earnings, and part-time work, as well as child penalties in employment and earnings. We find that longer duration of parental leave generally lowers gender gaps in wages, employment, earnings, and child penalties in employment and earnings, except for high levels of this entitlement, where further increases in leave raise gender gaps. We also find that the right to request a part-time work schedule raises relative female part-time employment but lowers employment and earnings gender gaps. Higher government expenditures for childcare lower employment, earnings, and part-time employment gender gaps as well as child employment and earnings penalties. These results are generally stronger for the less educated than for the highly educated, possibly reflecting higher costs of taking time off for highly educated women. Finally, expansion of family-friendly policies over this period can account for 24-33% of our sample’s reduction in gender gaps in employment and earnings and 46-76% of the reduction in child penalties in these outcomes. The slower expansion of such policies in the United States than elsewhere accounts for 6-15% of the slower reduction in US gender employment and earnings gaps and 20% of the slower fall in the US child employment penalty. |
| JEL: | J16 J18 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35939 |
| By: | Deriu, Letizia (University of Trento); Piazzalunga, Daniela (University of Trento); Tomasi, Chiara (University of Trento) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines gender disparities in the European labour market during the twin digital and green transitions. Using the European Skills and Jobs Survey matched with the ESCO occupational classification, it identifies digital and green occupations based on their skill content and analyses both access to these jobs and wage outcomes within them. Women are significantly less likely to work in digital and green occupations and, conditional on employment, face larger wage gaps than comparable men. They are also less likely to hold managerial positions and benefit less from STEM educational backgrounds, despite the positive returns associated with these qualifications. Finally, stronger regional STEM-oriented university environments are associated with smaller gender gaps in access to digital occupations and wages, suggesting that the twin transition may reinforce existing gender inequalities unless accompanied by targeted policies. |
| Keywords: | gender disparities, gender wage gap, green jobs, digital jobs, STEM, labour market |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J31 O33 Q52 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18987 |
| By: | Philipp Doerrenberg (University of Mannheim); Christoph Feldhaus (Ruhr University Bochum); Paula Scholz (University of Cologne); Sebastian Berger (Bern University of Applied Sciences) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a field experiment on gender discrimination against pre-PhD students in academic economics and business administration. We invite the universe of postdocs and professors at German, Austrian, and Swiss universities to a survey on AI in teaching. Invitations are randomly sent by nine male and nine female Master’s students. Each student also randomly varies whether their email mentions a PhD intention. Male researchers provide more answers to female students, while female researchers show no average gender difference. PhD intention increases male researchers’ responses to male students. It reduces female researchers’ responses to female students, driven mainly by tenured researchers. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Behavior, Discrimination, Academia, Field Experiment |
| JEL: | C93 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:439 |
| By: | Federico Atzori (Sapienza University); Luca Corazzini (University of Milan - Bicocca); Valeria Maggian (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice); Filippo Pavesi (LIUC University); Massimo Scotti (LIUC University) |
| Abstract: | We examine gender differences in competitiveness when performance depends on creativity, which is central to many high-skilled jobs, and investigate how generative AI may affect them. Our study is based on a laboratory experiment in which participants complete a creative task and then choose whether to enter a tournament compensation scheme, with access to ChatGPT varying across treatments. While men and women achieve similar levels of creative performance, they differ in competition entry, with women displaying a lower willingness to compete in environments without AI assistance. This gender gap in competition becomes smaller when AI is available. To investigate the mechanisms behind this pattern, we construct a measure of underconfidence based on the difference between participants’ beliefs about their relative performance and their actual rank. We show that underconfidence predicts competition entry and that, besides improving creative performance, AI is associated with lower underconfidence, particularly among women. |
| Keywords: | Gender Gap in Competition; Creativity; Generative AI; Laboratory Experiment |
| JEL: | C91 J16 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2026:25 |
| By: | Kalleitner, Fabian; Adriaans, Jule; Brüggemann, Ole; Moya, Cristóbal; Bohmann, Sandra |
| Abstract: | Willingness to reduce gender inequalities partly depends on whether people are aware of them and consider them unfair. Extending scholarship centered on inequality misperceptions, we focus on beliefs about the sources of the gender pay gap (GPG), experimentally varying people's ability to attribute pay disparities to women's choices. Preregistered survey experiments in the U.S. and Germany show that information about larger (vs. smaller) and within-job (vs. overall) GPGs independently increases awareness, raises perceived unfairness, and translates into general support for government action. Initially less-supportive groups (conservatives, men) showed some of the largest increases in general support. Yet, updated beliefs did not increase support for specific policies, such as pay transparency laws or gender quotas. These findings suggest that information campaigns can affect beliefs about GPG's size and sources, but even perceiving GPGs as unfair does not bridge the gap between abstract commitment to gender equality and concrete policy support. |
| Keywords: | gender pay gap, misperception, gender equality policy, information provision experiment |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cexwps:344216 |
| By: | Mikkel Aagaard Houmark; Victor Ronda |
| Abstract: | This paper examines heterogeneity in the gender gap in early cognitive skills. While boys lag behind on average, we document both a socioeconomic and a genetic gradient, with disadvantaged boys falling substantially further behind comparable girls. Estimating a dynamic skill formation model, we show that the genetic gradient reflects boys’ greater sensitivity to their own endowments, while the socioeconomic gradient can be explained by genetic differences, higher returns to parental investment, and stronger skill self-productivity among boys. Differences in parental investments further amplify both the average gender gap and the overrepresentation of boys at both tails of the skill distribution. |
| Keywords: | child development, cognitive skills, parental investments, genes, SES |
| JEL: | D10 I24 J13 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13078 |
| By: | Carla Varona Cervantes; Russell Cooper |
| Abstract: | This paper studies policy interventions intended to eliminate gender differences in labor market outcomes, principally wages. Because gender is an individual attribute rather than a manipulable treatment, the ideal experiment of randomly assigning gender to evaluate its effects is infeasible. Policies that remove gender labels from the employment process are the closest feasible counterpart. We quantify both the intended and unintended consequences of the policies through simulated interventions of an estimated equilibrium model of statistical discrimination with dynamic choices of education and labor market participation. In the short run the policy that requires gender free applications in the market for skilled labor eliminates wage gaps but once education choices respond the effects are attenuated. A more comprehensive policy that enforces gender free compensation reverses the wage gap in skilled markets and eliminates it in unskilled labor markets, even once education adjusts. These interventions impact college rates, the college premium gap and participation rates as well. The final section studies these interventions using a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to analyze the simulated data. With education fixed, the DID method recovers the policy effects but this is not the case once education adjusts, reflecting the effects of the intervention on both treated and control groups through equilibrium adjustments in beliefs. |
| JEL: | E24 I26 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35935 |