|
on Gender |
|
Issue of 2026–10–12
six papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Nava Ashraf (STICERD and Department of Economics, LSE); Oriana Bandiera (STICERD and Department of Economics, LSE); Víctor Quintas-Martínez (Amazon); Virginia Minni (University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, CEPR, IZA, and J-PAL and NBER) |
| Abstract: | We ask whether the gendered division of work affects firm productivity across the spectrum of economic development. Personnel records of over 100, 000 individuals hired by a global firm that operates in 100 countries reveal that the performance of female employees is higher where women are underrepresented in the candidate pool. This implies productivity gains from hiring more women, but realizing them would require increasing women’s pay relative to men. The findings highlight how unequal gender norms in local labor markets create an equity-efficiency trade-off inside the firm, particularly in low-income countries with conservative gender norms. |
| JEL: | O12 O15 M5 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2026-124 |
| By: | Kuhn, Andreas (Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training) |
| Abstract: | Women have caught up significantly with men in recent decades, but occupational choices remain stubbornly segregated by gender. One particularly popular hypothesis postulates that societal gender norms are the key factor explaining this phenomenon. I attempt to test the validity of this claim as directly as possible in this paper, using a unique combination of different data sources. Data covering the full stock of apprenticeship contracts active in the school year 2021/22 allows me to construct geographically disaggregated measures of occupational segregation, and I use local results from five national-level votes on gender-related policies to construct a measure of local gender norms. The data reveal that there is a statistically significant and practically relevant association between local gender norms and the regional extent of occupational segregation, with more progressive norms associated with less segregation. However, further analyses, carried out by leveraging two distinct identification strategies, point to a small and ultimately insignificant effect of gender norms on occupational segregation once potential confounders are taken into account. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice, occupational segregation, gender norms, apprenticeship, culture, spatial analysis, language border, geographic quasi-experiment |
| JEL: | D91 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18975 |
| By: | Macchiavello, Rocco; Menzel, Andreas; Rabbani, Atonu; Woodruff, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Women remain disadvantaged in promotion to managerial positions. We conduct a field experiment with 24 large garment factories in Bangladesh to test for inefficient representation of women among line supervisors. We identify the marginal female and male candidates for supervisory positions and randomly assign them to manage production lines. We document four findings: (1) In contrast to widespread negative beliefs about women's ability as supervisors at baseline, female candidates selected by the factories had similar skills to males; (2) during the trial, females performed worse than males, which we show is related to negative bias against them; (3) after the trial, however, many female candidates were retained as supervisors and, conditional on that, performed similar to males; and (4) after the end of our intervention, factories permanently increased the share of women among newly appointed supervisors. A conceptual framework of experimentation over discrimination rationalizes all these facts and cautions against the standard logic to test for discrimination: when there is uncertainty about the performance of the discriminated group, equal—or even worse—performance of the marginal candidates of that group is no longer sufficient to rule out inefficient discrimination. |
| Keywords: | gender discrimination;productivity;export manufacturing |
| JEL: | J16 J71 M51 M54 O14 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:130806 |
| By: | Christine Braun (University of Warwick); Ana Figueiredo (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We study how labor market beliefs shape the gender wage gap in an equilibrium search model with endogenous wage setting and hiring, in which workers hold subjective expectations about wage offers, job arrival rates, and separation risk. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations to estimate the model, we find that gender differences in beliefs account for 25% of the gender wage gap. Correcting these beliefs partly narrows the gap but is not welfare-improving, as it reduces lifetime earnings for both men and women. In contrast, equalizing labor market fundamentals substantially reduces the wage gap while increasing women's lifetime earnings. |
| Keywords: | Gender wage gap; Labor market beliefs; Job search |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J64 |
| Date: | 2026–10–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20260077 |
| By: | Ahmed, Hardi; de Walque, Damien B. C. M.; Lopez, Carolina |
| Abstract: | The generational evolution of gender gaps in education in Sub-Saharan Africa remains poorly documented at the regional scale. This paper uses micro data from Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys from 35 countries (approximately 736, 000 individuals), complemented by international educational assessment and monitoring program (managed by the Conference of Ministers of Education of French-Speaking Countries) test scores for 14 francophone countries. The paper traces gender differences in educational attainment and learning by birth cohort. The findings show that attainment gaps narrow sharply across cohorts: the female disadvantage falls from 13–15 percentage points in primary and secondary attendance and 1.9 years of schooling among those born in the 1970s to far smaller values among the most recent cohorts, and it is statistically insignificant across most of the youngest birth cohorts. Among those born after 1999, females exceed males in secondary attendance and years of education in a majority of countries. However, convergence is uneven. It partly reflects stagnation in boys’ secondary attendance rather than female gains; learning gaps show no uniform direction across countries and often run counter to attainment; and wider attainment gaps persist among rural, poorer, and Muslim populations. |
| Date: | 2026–09–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11455 |
| By: | Aspasia Bizopoulou; Elias Einiö; Tuomo Virkola |
| Abstract: | We study the impacts of firm-level pay transparency policy under different collective bargaining settings. We show that firms react to pay transparency requirements by reducing gender gaps, as intended by policy makers, but also by hiring fewer workers to lower-paid positions, which results in overall wage compression. Gender gap reductions are concentrated in firms under collective bargaining agreements, while hiring reductions and wage compression are concentrated in firms less exposed to collective bargaining, where employers have more discretion over individual wages. These results suggest that the effects of pay transparency on workplace inequality depend on labor market institutions. |
| Keywords: | pay transparency, wage inequality, sorting, work satisfaction, discrimination, collective bargaining |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J38 J52 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26252 |