The Role of Beliefs in Driving Gender Discrimination

Katherine B. Coffman (), Christine L. Exley () and Muriel Niederle ()
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Katherine B. Coffman: Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts 02163
Christine L. Exley: Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts 02163
Muriel Niederle: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305; National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Management Science, 2021, vol. 67, issue 6, 3551-3569

Abstract: Although there is ample evidence of discrimination against women in the workplace, it can be difficult to understand what factors contribute to discriminatory behavior. We use an experiment to both document discrimination and unpack its sources. First, we show that, on average, employers prefer to hire male over female workers for male-typed tasks, even when the two workers have identical résumés. Second, and most critically, we use a control condition to identify that this discrimination is not specific to gender. Employers are simply less willing to hire a worker from a group that performs worse on average, even when this group is, instead, defined by a nonstereotypical characteristic. In this way, beliefs about average group differences are the key driver of discrimination against women in our setting. We also document some evidence for in-group preferences that contribute to the gender discrimination observed. Finally, our design allows us to understand and quantify the extent to which image concerns mitigate discriminatory behavior.

Keywords: gender; discrimination; economics; behavior; behavioral decision making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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