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Words matter: Experimental evidence from job applications
... Particularly alarming, though, are pilot study results showing that some of the requirements that discourage women to apply (like ICT skills) are perceived as less crucial for the jobs under consideration. Stripping job postings of unnecessary competencies ('nice to have' qualifications) might be one way to counter self-selecting-out processes and help to close the gender gap in recruitment and promotion decisions (Abraham et al., 2024;Ibarra et al., 2013). ...
... Our findings do not advocate for lowering the bar, as one might wrongly conclude. Instead of lowering the required competencies to stimulate more women to apply, one might request only those competency requirements that are necessary and mind the exact formulation of the requirements as well ('behavioral' vs. 'dispositional';Abraham et al., 2024;Ibarra et al., 2013). ...
... Furthermore, requirements that are not crucial for the job should be avoided as they may wrongly discourage women from applying. Alternatively, requirements could be labeled as 'must haves' versus 'nice to haves' to explicitly stress this difference (Abraham et al., 2024). Finally, we suggest doing a sensitivity check on those requirements to investigate how women perceive the job ad and what might negatively trigger them (Golubovich et al., 2014). ...
Women are still underrepresented at the top levels of organizations across Europe and the United States. Scholars have identified obstacles that hinder women’s climb to the top but have overlooked women’s perceptions of job advertisements for top-level positions as a potential barrier to top-level positions. The present study investigated the effects of meta-stereotyped person requirements (positive vs. negative) and their wording (dispositional vs. behavioral) in job ads for top-level executive positions on female candidates’ application intention, as well as the mediating effect of job attractiveness. An experimental field study in a large, Western European governmental organization (Nmain study = 432 female officers), preceded by a pilot study (verbal protocol analysis; Npilot = 19 female executives) showed that compared to positively meta-stereotyped person requirements, negatively meta-stereotyped person requirements reduced female candidates’ attraction to a job and, in turn, their intention to apply for top-level executive positions. The way person requirements were worded in job ads (i.e., in a behavioral versus dispositional way) also affected women’s perceived job attractiveness, yet this depended on the type of requirement. Implications are considered for drafting job ads to encourage more qualified female candidates to apply.
... Furthermore, a trend toward offering short digital applications directly on the company website can be observed, especially among SMEs (Abraham et al., 2024). This is intended to provide a low-threshold and spontaneous entry into the recruiting process for potential applicants. ...
... Among others, the content of job advertisements and the information presented have a significant influence on job seekers' attitudes and application decisions. Several empirical studies have documented that job ads providing relevant and specific information about the advertised job and company will be perceived more positively (Abraham et al., 2024;Feldman et al., 2006;Liu, 2020;Walker et al., 2008;Yüce and Highhouse, 1998), and that including compensation and benefits information in the advertisement will boost application intentions (Verwaeren et al., 2017). However, research examining the interactions between job advertisement information content and candidate characteristics is relatively scarce. ...
Business organizations use job advertisements to find and attract the high-quality workforce they need. Skillfully crafted job advertisements not only provide job-related information to job seekers but also help develop a strong employer brand in the employee market. Based on signaling theory and person-environment fit theory, we propose that the content and specificity of information provided in job advertisements influence job advertisement effectiveness through various mechanisms. In a scenario-based experiment on 310 young job seekers, we probed the direct and indirect effects of job advertisement informativeness on job pursuit intentions. Using structural equations modelling and multi-group path analysis, the mediating roles of perceived job appropriateness and ad truthfulness, along with the moderating role of previous employment experience, were examined. By manipulating the information content of a hypothetical job advertisement, we demonstrated that: a) both advertisement informativeness and perceived job appropriateness had positive direct effects on application intentions, while the latter had a greater effect; b) perceived job appropriateness mediated the relationship between advertisement informativeness and job pursuit intentions; c) the indirect (mediated) effect of advertisement informativeness on application intentions was moderated by previous employment experience; d) perceived ad truthfulness did not exert any significant effect on application intentions. These findings imply that HR practitioners should provide specific information in job postings to help candidates, especially those with less work experience, evaluate how well the job suits them and increase their motivation to apply.
... The McCall (1970) This study is, to the best of my knowledge, the first attempt to experimentally vary the costs of access to job information. Related experimental work evaluates various programs for job search advice and monitoring (Graversen and van Ours, 2008;Crépon et al., 2013;Behaghel et al., 2014;Altmann et al., 2018;Belot et al., 2018), information on the number of applicants (Gee, 2019), and the wording of job postings (Abraham and Stein, 2022). Pertinent observational studies investigate how the internet changed job search (Kuhn and Skuterud, 2004;Kuhn and Mansour, 2014;Kroft and Pope, 2014 ...
Search frictions impede the labor market. Despite this indisputable fact, it is a priori unclear how job search costs affect search duration and unemployment: lower search costs make it easier to find a job, reducing search duration and unemployment, but may also increase the reservation wage, increasing search duration and unemployment. I collaborate with a recruiting company to directly test the effects of lower search costs in a field experiment among approximately 400 IT professionals in Switzerland. I find that workers are more likely to search for detailed job information, but not to file a job application, when search costs are lower. These findings are consistent with an increase in the reservation wage. Lower search costs might lead to picky workers, but fail to ultimately reduce search duration and unemployment.
Scholars have examined whether preferences for job characteristics help explain why men and women sort into different occupations but have overlooked preferences for meaning at work. We first document gender differences in preferences for meaning in a large-scale survey covering individuals in 47 countries. We then conduct a choice-based conjoint analysis of a cohort of MBA students at a leading business school to study gender differences in preferences for meaning compared to other job attributes. We show that gender differences in preferences for meaning at work are widespread and partly explain gender differences in behavioral outcomes, including industry of work. (JEL D91, I23, J16, J24, J28)
I investigate men’s limited entry into female-dominated sectors through a large-scale field experiment. The design exogenously varies recruitment messages by showing photographs of current workers (male or female) and providing information on the share of workers who received high evaluations in the past (higher or lower). A male photograph has no impact on men’s applications, but informing about a lower share of high evaluations encourages men to apply and enables the employer to hire and retain more talented men. The impact of this informational intervention remains positive for the employer also accounting for its effects on female applicants and hires. (JEL C93, D83, J16, J22, J23, J24, M51)
When employers' explicit gender requests were unexpectedly removed from a Chinese job board overnight, pools of successful applicants became more integrated: women's (men's) share of callbacks to jobs that had requested men (women) rose by 61 (146) percent. The removal “worked” in this sense because it generated a large increase in gender-mismatched applications, and because those applications were treated surprisingly well by employers, suggesting that employers' gender requests often represented relatively weak preferences or outdated stereotypes. The job titles that were integrated by the ban, however, were not the most gendered ones, and were disproportionately lower-wage jobs. (JEL J16, J23, J41, J63, J71, M51, P31)
We run a series of experiments, involving over 4,000 online participants and over 10,000 school-aged youth. When individuals are asked to subjectively describe their performance on a male-typed task relating to math and science, we find a large gender gap in self-evaluations. This gap arises both when self-evaluations are provided to potential employers, and thus measure self-promotion, and when self-evaluations are not driven by incentives to promote. The gender gap in self-evaluations proves persistent and arises as early as the sixth grade. No gender gap arises, however, if individuals are instead asked about their performance on a more female-typed task.
We run a series of experiments, involving over 4,000 online participants and over 10,000 school-aged youth. When individuals are asked to subjectively describe their performance on a male-typed task relating to math and science, we find a large gender gap in self-evaluations. This gap arises both when self-evaluations are provided to potential employers, and thus measure self-promotion, and when self-evaluations are not driven by incentives to promote. The gender gap in self-evaluations proves persistent and arises as early as the sixth grade. No gender gap arises, however, if individuals are instead asked about their performance on a more female-typed task.
An important source of people's perceptions of their performance, and potential errors in those perceptions, are chronic views people hold regarding their abilities. In support of this observation, manipulating people's general views of their ability, or altering which view seemed most relevant to a task, changed performance estimates independently of any impact on actual performance. A final study extended this analysis to why women disproportionately avoid careers in science. Women performed equally to men on a science quiz, yet underestimated their performance because they thought less of their general scientific reasoning ability than did men. They, consequently, were more likely to refuse to enter a science competition.
There is a human capital crisis looming in the public sector as fewer and fewer people show interest in government jobs. At the same time, many public sector organizations struggle with increasing the diversity of their workforce. Although many institutional forces contribute to the challenge, part of the solution is in how government recruits. This study presents the results of a field experiment aimed at attracting more and different people to apply to a police force by varying job advertisements in a postcard. The results suggest that focusing on public service motivation (PSM) messages is ineffective at attracting candidates that would not have applied anyway. Rather, messages that focus on the personal benefits of applying to the job-either emphasizing the challenge of the job or the career benefits-are three times as effective at getting individuals to apply as the control, without an observable loss in applicant quality. These messages are particularly effective for people of color and women, thereby supporting a key policy goal of the police to increase diversity of applicants.
Qualification-based targeted recruitment strategies aim to increase the number of qualified applicants from certain social groups, such as women. Typically, such strategies assume that individuals are more likely to apply for a job when they possess the requirements needed for that job. However, how job seekers react to requirements in job ads is not often considered and is explored in the present study. In two experimental studies with Belgian university students we investigated whether person requirements about which women have negative meta-stereotypes (like the trait of emotionality) and the way such requirements are formulated in job ads (i.e., using trait-like adjectives, “You are calm/not nervous,” or behavior-like verbs, “You remain calm in stressful situations”) affected women’s job attraction and decision to apply. A repeated measures ANOVA showed that job attraction was lower if women held negative meta-stereotypes about required personality traits in job ads (Study 1; 218 women; M age = 23.44 years, range = 21–42; 97% ethnic majorities). Moreover, qualified women applied to a lesser extent if a negatively meta-stereotyped trait was worded in a trait-like way than when it was worded in a behavior-like way (Study 2; n = 183; M age = 23.68 years, range = 21–44; 58% women; 97% ethnic majorities). A practical implication is that recruiters should be sensitive to how they formulate job ads if they wish to attract a highly qualified and gender-diverse applicant pool.
Purpose Grounded in person–environment fit theory, this field experiment was designed to test the effects of job advertisements emphasizing information about demands–abilities (D–A) or needs–supplies (N–S) fit on the size and quality of the applicant pool. The wording used in 56 actual job ads was manipulated to emphasize D–A or N–S fit, and data were collected about application behavior and applicant quality based on ratings of the resumes submitted by 991 applicants. Other study hypotheses were tested using survey data collected from a subsample (n = 91). Findings Job ads emphasizing N–S fit, rather than D–A fit, elicited more applications (relative to job ad views) and a higher quality applicant pool. Analyses of survey data provided support for mediated and moderated effects that provide insight into how and for whom N–S fit information in job ads is ultimately linked to greater attraction. Implications The findings indicate that recruiting organizations can craft job ads to emphasize specific types of fit and favorably affect applicants’ perceived fit, attraction, and application behavior, as well as the quality of the applicant pool. Originality/value This study is one of only a few field experiments containing manipulations of the content of job ads in the recruitment literature. The distinction between two important fit constructs that have received surprisingly little empirical attention in recruitment contexts was found to have effects on application behavior and applicant quality—two critically important, yet rarely examined outcomes.
Significance
Does discrimination contribute to the low percentage of women in mathematics and science careers? We designed an experiment to isolate discrimination’s potential effect. Without provision of information about candidates other than their appearance, men are twice more likely to be hired for a mathematical task than women. If ability is self-reported, women still are discriminated against, because employers do not fully account for men’s tendency to boast about performance. Providing full information about candidates’ past performance reduces discrimination but does not eliminate it. We show that implicit stereotypes (as measured by the Implicit Association Test) predict not only the initial bias in beliefs but also the suboptimal updating of gender-related expectations when performance-related information comes from the subjects themselves.
Drawing from victim precipitation, social comparison, and identity theories, this study develops and tests an integrative model of the victimization of high-performing employees. We examine envy as an explanatory mechanism of the victimization of high performers from fellow group members and propose work group identification as a moderator of this envy mechanism. Study 1, in a sample of 4,874 university staff employees in 339 work groups, supports the proposition that high performers are more likely to be targets of victimization. In Study 2, multisource data collected at 2 time points (217 employees in 67 work groups in 3 organizations), supports the proposition that high performers are more likely to be targets of victimization because of fellow group members' envy, and work group identification mitigates the mediated relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Given increased interest in whether targets' behaviors at work are related to their victimization, we investigated employees' job performance level as a precipitating factor for being victimized by peers in one's work group. Drawing on rational choice theory and the victim precipitation model, we argue that perpetrators take into consideration the risks of aggressing against particular targets, such that high performers tend to experience covert forms of victimization from peers, whereas low performers tend to experience overt forms of victimization. We further contend that the motivation to punish performance deviants will be higher when performance differentials are salient, such that the effects of job performance on covert and overt victimization will be exacerbated by group performance polarization, yet mitigated when the target has high equity sensitivity (benevolence). Finally, we investigate whether victimization is associated with future performance impairments. Results from data collected at 3 time points from 576 individuals in 62 work groups largely support the proposed model. The findings suggest that job performance is a precipitating factor to covert victimization for high performers and overt victimization for low performers in the workplace with implications for subsequent performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
This research assessed gender differences in the accuracy of self-perceptions. Do males and females with equal ability have similar self-perceptions of their ability? Three measures of accuracy were used: accuracy of self-evaluations, calibration for individual questions, and response bias. As hypothesized, for a masculine task, significant gender differences were found for all three measures: Females' self-evaluations of performance were inaccurately low, their confidence statements for individual questions were less wel calibrated than males; and their response bias was more conservative than males'. None of these gender differences were found for feminine and neutral tasks. As hypothesized, strong self-consistency tendencies were found. Expectancies emerged as an important predictor of self-evaluations of performance for both genders and could account for females' inaccurately low self-evaluations on the masculine task. How females' inaccurate self-perceptions might negatively affect achievement behavior and curtail their participation in masculine domains is discussed.
This study investigated gender differences inthe accuracy of self-perceptions and whetherself-perception biases are related to negative recallbiases. Participants were 275 female and 213 malecollege students. Approximately 10% of the participantswere minorities (mostly African American and Asian). Ona masculine task, gender differences in self-perceptionswere found for three measures of accuracy: The accuracy of self-evaluations, calibration,and response bias. Females underestimated theirperformance, were less well calibrated, and showed amore conservative response bias than did males. Ashypothesized, no gender differences in the accuracy ofself-evaluations were found for feminine and neutraltasks. Participants' expectancies mediated the genderdifferences in post task self-evaluations ofperformance. In addition, evidence for a negative recallbias was found. Females were more likely than males torecall their mistakes even with performance and accuracyof self-evaluations controlled. The implications of females' greater self-perception biases onmasculine tasks are discussed and suggestions for futureresearch are made.
Although gender differences are fairly consistent when people report their general confidence, much less is known about such differences when individuals assess the degree of confidence they have in their ability to answer any particular test question. The objective of this research was to investigate gender differences in item-specific confidence judgments. Data were collected from 3 psychology courses containing 70 men and 181 women. After answering each item on course exams, students indicated their confidence that their answer to that item was correct. Results showed that gender differences in confidence are dependent on the context (whether items were correct or wrong) and on the domain being tested. Moreover, although both men and women were overconfident, undergraduate men were especially overconfident when incorrect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Women who pursue or possess power are at risk for backlash, defined as social and economic penalties for defying stereotypic expectations (Rudman, 1998). Rule-based gender stereotypes stipulate acceptable behaviors for women and men and when these rules are violated, perceivers react negatively. We review research demonstrating the Catch-22 that female leaders face, such that they are required to display agency to overcome the lack of fit between their gender and leadership yet when they do so, they risk prejudice and hiring discrimination (i.e., backlash). Our review reveals how this dilemma encumbers women in all aspects of their career. We consider factors that moderate the likelihood of backlash effects and describe recent research that sheds light on the mechanisms responsible for negative reactions toward women striving for positions of power. Finally, we discuss the implications of backlash for preserving stereotypes in the culture-at-large and the gender status quo and suggest directions for future research.
Social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) contends that institutional-level mechanisms exist that reinforce and perpetuate existing group-based inequalities, but very few such mechanisms have been empirically demonstrated. We propose that gendered wording (i.e., masculine- and feminine-themed words, such as those associated with gender stereotypes) may be a heretofore unacknowledged, institutional-level mechanism of inequality maintenance. Employing both archival and experimental analyses, the present research demonstrates that gendered wording commonly employed in job recruitment materials can maintain gender inequality in traditionally male-dominated occupations. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated the existence of subtle but systematic wording differences within a randomly sampled set of job advertisements. Results indicated that job advertisements for male-dominated areas employed greater masculine wording (i.e., words associated with male stereotypes, such as leader, competitive, dominant) than advertisements within female-dominated areas. No difference in the presence of feminine wording (i.e., words associated with female stereotypes, such as support, understand, interpersonal) emerged across male- and female-dominated areas. Next, the consequences of highly masculine wording were tested across 3 experimental studies. When job advertisements were constructed to include more masculine than feminine wording, participants perceived more men within these occupations (Study 3), and importantly, women found these jobs less appealing (Studies 4 and 5). Results confirmed that perceptions of belongingness (but not perceived skills) mediated the effect of gendered wording on job appeal (Study 5). The function of gendered wording in maintaining traditional gender divisions, implications for gender parity, and theoretical models of inequality are discussed.
The careers of MBAs from a top US business school are studied to understand how career dynamics differ by gender. Although male and female MBAs have nearly identical earnings at the outset of their careers, their earnings soon diverge, with the male earnings advantage reaching almost 60 log points a decade after MBA completion. Three proximate factors account for the large and rising gender gap in earnings: differences in training prior to MBA graduation, differences in career interruptions, and differences in weekly hours. The greater career discontinuity and shorter work hours for female MBAs are largely associated with motherhood. (JEL J16, J22, J31, J44)
I investigate men’s limited entry into female-dominated sectors through a large-scale field experiment. The design exogenously varies recruitment messages by showing photographs of current workers (male or female) and providing information on the share of workers who received high evaluations in the past (higher or lower). A male photograph has no impact on men’s applications, but informing about a lower share of high evaluations encourages men to apply and enables the employer to hire and retain more talented men. The impact of this informational intervention remains positive for the employer also accounting for its effects on female applicants and hires. (JEL C93, D83, J16, J22, J23, J24, M51)
The gender ask gap measures the extent to which women ask for lower salaries than comparable men. This paper studies its role in generating wage inequality, using novel data from an online recruitment platform for full-time engineering jobs: Hired.com. To use the platform, job candidates must post an ask salary, stating how much they want to make in their next job. Firms then apply to candidates by offering them a bid salary, solely based on the candidate’s resume and ask salary. If the candidate is hired, a final salary is recorded. After adjusting for resume characteristics, the ask gap is 2.9%, the bid gap is 2.2%, and the final offer gap is 1.4%. Further controlling for the ask salary explains the entirety of the residual gender gaps in bid and final salaries. To further provide evidence of the causal effect of the ask salary on the bid salary, I exploit an unanticipated change in how candidates were prompted to provide their ask. For some candidates in mid-2018, the answer box used to solicit the ask salary was changed from an empty field to an entry pre-filled with the median bid salary for similar candidates. I find that this change drove the ask, bid, and final offer gaps to zero. In addition, women did not receive fewer bids or final offers than men did due to the change, suggesting they faced little penalty for demanding comparable wages.
This article investigates gender differences in the job search process in the field and lab. Our analysis is based on rich information on initial job offers and acceptances from undergraduates of Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. We find (i) a clear gender difference in the timing of job offer acceptance, with women accepting jobs substantially earlier than men, and (ii) a sizable gender earnings gap in accepted offers, which narrows in favor of women over the course of the job search period. To understand these patterns, we develop a job search model that incorporates gender differences in risk aversion and overoptimism about prospective offers. We validate the model’s assumptions and predictions using the survey data and present empirical evidence that the job search patterns in the field can be partly explained by the greater risk aversion displayed by women and the higher levels of overoptimism displayed by men. We replicate these findings in a laboratory experiment that features sequential job search and provide direct evidence on the purported mechanisms. Our findings highlight the importance of risk preferences and beliefs for gender differences in job-finding behavior and, consequently, early-career wage gaps among the highly educated.
Labor market outcomes depend, in part, upon an individual’s willingness to put him- or herself forward for different opportunities. We use a series of experiments to explore gender differences in willingness to apply for higher-return, more challenging work. We find that, in male-typed domains, qualified women are significantly less likely to apply than similarly well-qualified men. We provide evidence both in a controlled setting and in the field that reducing ambiguity surrounding required qualifications increases the rate at which qualified women apply. The effects are mixed for men. Our results point to a way to increase the pool of qualified women applicants.
This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis.
Funding: This work was funded by the National Science Foundation [Grant 1713752] and Harvard Business School.
Supplemental Material: The e-companion and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4907 .
This paper documents gender differences in the career paths of novice politicians. Using trajectories of over 11,000 candidates for California local offices and a regression discontinuity approach, I investigate the persistence of candidates after they win or lose elections. Losing an election causes over 50 percent more attrition among female than male candidates. Yet the gender gap in persistence depends on the setting: there is a smaller gap among candidates for high female representation offices and among candidates with prior elective experience. I discuss how the expected costs and benefits of running again potentially explain the gender gap in persistence.
This paper examines the behavior of job seekers and recruiters in the labor market for software engineers. I obtained data from a recruiting platform where individuals can self-report their computer programming skills and recruiters can message individuals they wish to contact about job opportunities. I augment this data set with measures of each individual’s previous programming experience based on analysis of actual computer source code they wrote and shared within the open-source software community. This novel data set reveals that candidates’ self-reported technical skills are quantitatively important predictors of recruiter interest. Consistent with social psychology and behavioral economics studies, I also find female programmers with previous experience in a programming language are 11.07% less likely than their male counterparts to self-report knowledge of that programming language on their resume. Despite public pronouncements, however, recruiters do not appear more inclined toward recruiting female candidates who self-report knowing programming languages. Indeed, recruiters are predicted to be 6.47% less likely to express interest in a female candidate than a male candidate with comparable observable qualifications even if those qualifications are very strong. Ultimately, a gender gap in the self-reporting of skills on resumes exists; but recruiters do not appear to be adjusting their response to such signals in ways that could increase the representation of women among software engineering recruits.
This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis.
We study the impact of using informational messaging aimed at encouraging women to seek a career in technology and the resulting trade-offs for organizations pursuing recruitment strategies of this kind. Our treatment, implemented through two field experiments among potential applicants to a five-month software-coding program targeted at low-income women in Peru and Mexico, counterbalances the strong male stereotype associated with a career in tech. Although our informational messages substantially increase application rates, including candidates at the top of the cognitive skill distribution, they introduce negative selection on cognitive skills, implying a higher cost of screening. Moreover, we observe selection on the noncognitive dimensions addressed with the treatment (e.g., stronger gender stereotypes and traditional norms). This points to the barriers that preclude more women from applying to tech positions, as well as the trade-offs for organizations of adopting such a strategy.
This paper was accepted by Alfonso Gambardella, business strategy.
Does flexible pay increase the gender wage gap? To answer this question we analyze the wages of public school teachers in Wisconsin, where a 2011 reform allowed school districts to set teachers’ pay more flexibly and engage in individual negotiations. Using quasi-exogenous variation in the timing of the introduction of flexible pay, driven by the expiration of preexisting collective-bargaining agreements, we show that flexible pay lowered the salaries of women compared with men with the same credentials. This gap is larger for younger teachers and smaller for teachers working under a female principal or superintendent. Survey evidence suggests that the gap is partly driven by women engaging less frequently in negotiations over pay, especially when the counterpart is a man. The gap is unlikely to be driven by observable gender differences in job mobility or teacher ability, although the threat of moving and a high demand for male teachers could exacerbate it. Our results suggest that pay discretion and wage bargaining are important determinants of the gender wage gap and that institutions, such as unions, might help narrow this gap.
We study how explicit employer requests for applicants of a particular gender enter the recruitment process on a Chinese job board, focusing on two questions: First, to what extent do employers' requests affect the gender mix of a firm's applicant pool? Second, how ‘hard’ are employers' stated gender requests-- are they essential requirements, soft preferences, or something in between? Using internal data from a Chinese job board, we estimate that an explicit request for men raises men's share in the applicant pool by 14.6 percentage points, or 26.4%; requests for women raises the female applicant share by 24.6 percentage points, or 55.0%. Men (women) who apply to gender-mismatched jobs also experience a substantial call-back penalty of 24 (43) percent. Thus, explicit gender requests do shape applicant pools, and signal a substantial but not absolute preference for the requested gender.
The gender difference in competitiveness has been cited as an important factor driving the gender gap in labor market outcomes. Using a field experiment with more than 35,000 university students, I explore the impact of compensation scheme on willingness to apply for a job. I find that competitive compensation schemes that depend on relative performance disproportionately deter women from applying. I do not find the same deterrence effect under a compensation scheme in which students face uncertain payoffs independent of performance. I also test the impact of describing the job as helping a charity, and this increases the willingness to apply but does not affect the gender gap. My findings are important for managers, who need to understand the impact of different compensation schemes on the share of women recruited for a job posting.
Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3107 .
This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics.
We conduct laboratory experiments that explore how gender stereotypes shape beliefs about ability of oneself and others in different categories of knowledge. The data reveal two patterns. First, men’s and women’s beliefs about both oneself and others exceed observed ability on average, particularly in difficult tasks. Second, overestimation of ability by both men and women varies across categories. To understand these patterns, we develop a model that separates gender stereotypes from misestimation of ability related to the difficulty of the task. We find that stereotypes contribute to gender gaps in self-confidence, assessments of others, and behavior in a cooperative game. (JEL C92, D83, D91, J16).
Men outnumber women as undergraduate economics majors by three to one nationwide. Even at the best research universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one or more. The Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge began in 2015 as an RCT with 20 treatment schools and at least 30 control schools to evaluate whether better course information, mentoring, encouragement, career counseling, and more relevant instructional content could move the needle. Although the RCT is still in the field, results from several within treatment-school randomized trials demonstrate that uncomplicated and inexpensive interventions can substantially increase women in economics.
Policymakers are often interested in estimating how policy interventions affect the outcomes of those most in need of help. This concern has motivated the practice of disaggregating experimental results by groups constructed on the basis of an index of baseline characteristics that predicts the values of individual outcomes without the treatment. This paper shows that substantial biases may arise in practice if the index is estimated by regressing the outcome variable on baseline characteristics for the full sample of experimental controls. We propose alternative methods that correct this bias and show that they behave well in realistic scenarios. © 2018 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
We employ a discrete choice experiment in the employment process for a national call center to estimate the willingness to pay distribution for alternative work arrangements relative to traditional office positions. Most workers are not willing to pay for scheduling flexibility, though a tail of workers with high valuations allows for sizable compensating differentials. The average worker is willing to give up 20 percent of wages to avoid a schedule set by an employer on short notice, and 8 percent for the option to work from home. We also document that many job-seekers are inattentive, and we account for this in estimation.
In empirical work in economics it is common to report standard errors that account for clustering of units. Typically, the motivation given for the clustering adjustments is that unobserved components in outcomes for units within clusters are correlated. However, because correlation may occur across more than one dimension, this motivation makes it difficult to justify why researchers use clustering in some dimensions, such as geographic, but not others, such as age cohorts or gender. It also makes it difficult to explain why one should not cluster with data from a randomized experiment. In this paper, we argue that clustering is in essence a design problem, either a sampling design or an experimental design issue. It is a sampling design issue if sampling follows a two stage process where in the first stage, a subset of clusters were sampled randomly from a population of clusters, while in the second stage, units were sampled randomly from the sampled clusters. In this case the clustering adjustment is justified by the fact that there are clusters in the population that we do not see in the sample. Clustering is an experimental design issue if the assignment is correlated within the clusters. We take the view that this second perspective best fits the typical setting in economics where clustering adjustments are used. This perspective allows us to shed new light on three questions: (i) when should one adjust the standard errors for clustering, (ii) when is the conventional adjustment for clustering appropriate, and (iii) when does the conventional adjustment of the standard errors matter.
Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) microdata over the 1980-2010 period, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably during this time. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution than at the middle or bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional explanations continue to have salience. Although human- capital factors are now relatively unimportant in the aggregate, women's work force interruptions and shorter hours remain significant in high-skilled occupations, possibly due to compensating differentials. Gender differences in occupations and industries, as well as differences in gender roles and the gender division of labor remain important, and research based on experimental evidence strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted. Psychological attributes or noncognitive skills comprise one of the newer explanations for gender differences in outcomes. Our effort to assess the quantitative evidence on the importance of these factors suggests that they account for a small to moderate portion of the gender pay gap, considerably smaller than, say, occupation and industry effects, though they appear to modestly contribute to these differences.
This paper uses data from artefactual field experiments and surveys conducted in 61 villages in India to examine whether men and women respond differently to women as leaders. We investigate the extent to which behavior towards female leaders is influenced by experience with women in leadership positions. We find evidence of significant male backlash against female leaders, which can be attributed to the transgression of social norms and in particular, a violation of male identity, when women are assigned to positions of leadership through gender based quotas. Increased exposure to female leaders reduces the extent of bias.
There is growing evidence that firm-specific pay premiums are an important source of wage inequality. These premiums will
contribute to the gender wage gap if women are less likely to work at high-paying firms or if women negotiate (or are offered)
worse wage bargains with their employers than men. Using longitudinal data on the hourly wages of Portuguese workers matched
with income statement information for firms, we show that the wages of both men and women contain firm-specific premiums that
are strongly correlated with simple measures of the potential bargaining surplus at each firm. We then show how the impact
of these firm-specific pay differentials on the gender wage gap can be decomposed into a combination of sorting and bargaining
effects. We find that women are less likely to work at firms that pay higher premiums to either gender, with sorting effects
being most important for low- and middle-skilled workers. We also find that women receive only 90% of the firm-specific pay
premiums earned by men. Importantly, we find the same gender gap in the responses of wages to changes in potential surplus
over time. Taken together, the combination of sorting and bargaining effects explain about one-fifth of the cross-sectional
gender wage gap in Portugal.
We use a lab experiment to explore the factors that predict an individual's decision to contribute her idea to a group. We find that contribution decisions depend upon the interaction of gender and the gender stereotype associated with the decision-making domain: conditional on measured ability, individuals are less willing to contribute ideas in areas that are stereotypically outside of their gender's domain. Importantly, these decisions are largely driven by self-assessments, rather than fear of discrimination. Individuals are less confident in gender incongruent areas and are thus less willing to contribute their ideas. Because even very knowledgeable group members under-contribute in gender incongruent categories, group performance suffers and, ex post, groups have difficulty recognizing who their most talented members are. Our results show that even in an environment where other group members show no bias, women in male-typed areas and men in female-typed areas may be less influential. An intervention that provides feedback about a woman's (man's) strength in a male-typed (female-typed) area does not significantly increase the probability that she contributes her ideas to the group. A back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that a "lean in" style policy that increases contribution by women would significantly improve group performance in male-typed domains.
The converging roles of men and women are among the grandest advances in society and the economy in the last century. These aspects of the grand gender convergence are figurative chapters in a history of gender roles. But what must the "last" chapter contain for there to be equality in the labor market? The answer may come as a surprise. The solution does not (necessarily) have to involve government intervention and it need not make men more responsible in the home (although that wouldn't hurt). But it must involve changes in the labor market, especially how jobs are structured and remunerated to enhance temporal flexibility. The gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long hours and worked particular hours. Such change has taken off in various sectors, such as technology, science, and health, but is less apparent in the corporate, financial, and legal worlds.
Psychological and socio-psychological factors are now more commonly discussed as possible explanations for gender differences in labor market outcomes. We first describe the (mainly) laboratory-based evidence regarding gender differences in risk preferences, in attitudes towards competition, in the strength of other-regarding preferences, and in attitudes towards negotiation. We then review the research that has tried to quantify the relevance of these factors in explaining gender differences in labor market outcomes outside of the laboratory setting. We also describe recent research on the relationship between social and gender identity norms and women's labor market choices and outcomes, as well as on the role of child-rearing practices in explaining gender identity norms. Finally, we report on some recent work documenting puzzling trends in women's well-being and discuss possible explanations for these trends, including identity considerations. We conclude with suggestions for future research.
An important line of research using laboratory experiments has provided a new potential reason for gender imbalances in labour
markets: men are more competitively inclined than women. Whether, and to what extent, gender differences in attitudes toward
competition lead to differences in naturally occurring labour markets remains an open question. To examine this, we run a
natural field experiment on job-entry decisions where we randomize almost 9000 job-seekers into different compensation regimes.
By varying the role that individual competition plays in setting the wage and the gender composition, we examine whether a
competitive compensation regime, by itself, can cause differential job entry. The data highlight the power of the compensation
regime in that women disproportionately shy away from competitive work settings. Yet, there are important factors that attenuate
the gender differences, including whether the job is performed in teams, whether the position has overt gender associations,
and the age of the job-seekers. We also find that the effect is most pronounced in labour markets with attractive alternative
employment options. Furthermore, our results suggest that preferences over uncertainty can be just as important as preferences
over competition per se in driving job-entry choices.
Two studies are reported which indicate that both sex-biased wording in job advertisements and the placement of help-wanted ads in sex-segregated newspaper columns discourage men and women from applying for “opposite-sex” jobs for which they might well be qualified. Both studies were originally conducted and presented as part of legal testimony in actual sex discrimination cases.
Internal competition may motivate worker effort, yet the benefits of competition may depend critically on workers’ relative abilities: large skill differences may reduce efforts. I use panel data from professional golf tournaments and find that the presence of a superstar is associated with lower performance. On average, golfers’ first-round scores are approximately 0.2 strokes worse when Tiger Woods participates relative to when Woods is absent. The overall tournament effect is 0.8 strokes. The adverse superstar effect varies with the quality of Woods’s play. There is no evidence that reduced performance is attributable to media attention intensity or risky strategy adoption.
This paper reviews the literature on gender differences in economic experiments. In the three main sections, we identify robust differences in risk preferences, social (other-regarding) preferences, and competitive preferences. We also speculate on the source of these differences, as well as on their implications. Our hope is that this article will serve as a resource for those seeking to understand gender differences and to use as a starting point to illuminate the debate on gender-specific outcomes in the labor and goods markets.
We examine whether men and women of the same ability differ in their selection into a competitive environment. Participants
in a laboratory experiment solve a real task, first under a noncompetitive piece rate and then a competitive tournament incentive
scheme. Although there are no gender differences in performance, men select the tournament twice as much as women when choosing
their compensation scheme for the next performance. While 73 percent of the men select the tournament, only 35 percent of
the women make this choice. This gender gap in tournament entry is not explained by performance, and factors such as risk
and feedback aversion only playa negligible role. Instead, the tournament-entry gap is driven by men being more overconfident
and by gender differences in preferences for performing in a competition. The result is that women shy away from competition
and men embrace it.
While much research has documented the pattern and extent of sex segregation of workers once they are employed, few studies have addressed the pre-hire mechanisms that are posited to produce sex segregation in employment. While the notion of a labor queue-the rank order of the set of people that employers choose among-plays a prominent role in pre-hire accounts of job sex sorting mechanisms, few studies have examined the ways in which job candidates are sorted into labor queues. In this paper, we explore the mechanisms by which labor queues contribute to the gendering of jobs by studying the hiring process for all jobs at a call center. Being placed in a queue has a clear gendering effect on the hiring process: the sex distribution of applicants who are matched to queues and those who are rejected at this phase diverge, and among those assigned to queues, women are prevalent in queues for low pay, low status jobs. The screening process also contributes to the gendering of the population of hires at this firm. Females are more prevalent among hires than they are among candidates at initial queue assignment. Among high status jobs, however, males are more prevalent than females. Moreover, there are important wage implications associated with matching to queues. While there are large between-queue sex differences in the paid wages associated with allocation to queues, once allocated to queues the wage differences between male and female candidates are nil. Consequently, the roots of gender wage inequality in this setting lie in the initial sorting of candidates to labor queues.
In May 2004, with the war for talent in high gear, Groysberg and colleagues from Harvard Business School wrote in these pages about the risks of hiring star performers away from competitors. After studying the fortunes of more than 1,000 star stock analysts, they found that when a star switched companies, not only did his performance plunge, so did the effectiveness of the group he joined and the market value of his new company. But further analysis of the data reveals that it's not that simple. In fact, one group of analysts reliably maintained star rankings even after changing employers: women. Unlike their male counterparts, female stars who switched firms performed just as well, in the aggregate, as those who stayed put. The 189 star women in the sample (18% of the star analysts studied) achieved a higher rank after switching firms than the men did. Why the discrepancy? First, says the author, the best female analysts appear to have built their franchises on portable, external relationships with clients and the companies they covered, rather than on relationships rooted within their firms. By contrast, male analysts built up greater firm- and team-specific human capital by investing more in the internal networks and unique capabilities and resources of their own companies. Second, women took greater care when assessing a prospective new employer. In this article, Groysberg explores the reasons behind the star women's portable performance.