Does a stereotype benefit women in the labor market: An experiment on perseverance

Simone Haeckl and Melis Kartal

No 2021/5, UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance from University of Stavanger

Abstract: We design a novel real-effort experiment to investigate gender differences and stereotypes regarding perseverance and how these affect employment decisions. We find that women are more persistent than men and that the subjects anticipate this difference. While it pays off, in expectation, to hire a female over a male candidate in our experimental employment setting, employers are not more likely to hire a female candidate. Thus, even in a setting where female candidates are statistically better workers and employers hold a positive stereotype about women, employers do not hire women more often than men. This finding contrasts with studies showing that men do benefit from positive stereotypes associated with them, and suggests that stereotypes might be more beneficial for men than for women.

Keywords: non-cognitive skills; perseverance; conscientiousness; gender and stereotypes; labor market experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 J16 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2021-12-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:stavef:2021_005

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