Persistence and change in age-specific gender gaps: Hollywood actors from the silent era onward

Robert K. Fleck and F. Andrew Hanssen ()

International Review of Law and Economics, 2016, vol. 48, issue C, 36-49

Abstract: In this paper, we examine a set of workers for whom age-based and gender-based discrimination has been widely alleged: motion picture actors. We document, measure, and consider possible explanations for age-specific gender gaps among Hollywood actors, using nearly a century’s worth of data on films and film roles. Consistent with reports in the popular press, we find a large and very persistent gender gap: Of the nearly half-million different roles played in more than 50,000 feature films between 1920 and 2011, two-thirds have gone to males, and the average male actor is consistently older (by six to ten years) than the average female actor. Yet the age-based gender differences that we observe cannot be explained by a simple model of discrimination—while there are fewer roles for middle-aged women than for middle-aged men, there are more roles for young women than for young men. The fact that these patterns have held steady through major changes in the film industry – and in society as a whole – suggests that correspondingly stable aspects of moviegoer preferences contribute to the age-specific nature of gender gaps.

Keywords: Gender gap; Age discrimination; Labor market; Actors; Films; Motion pictures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 N32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:48:y:2016:i:c:p:36-49

DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2016.08.002

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