The Hollywood gender gap: the role of action films

John S. Heywood (), Sofia Izquierdo Sanchez () and Maria Navarro Paniagua ()
Additional contact information
John S. Heywood: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Sofia Izquierdo Sanchez: University of Manchester
Maria Navarro Paniagua: Lancaster University

Journal of Cultural Economics, 2025, vol. 49, issue 3, No 4, 459-485

Abstract: Abstract We estimate gender earnings differentials among Hollywood stars. While this market should be particularly efficient in translating productivity into earnings, we demonstrate an unexplained female earnings gap of over two million dollars a film. Critically, we show that action films drive this gap. Our movie fixed effects estimate a much larger-million-dollar gap among action movies and a smaller statistically insignificant gap among other genres. Within the other genres, the one significant earnings gap is among stars older than 50. We argue that these patterns could reflect “consumer discrimination” but also raise other possibilities.

Keywords: Gender wage gap; Discrimination; Hollywood stars (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J31 J71 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10824-024-09514-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jculte:v:49:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s10824-024-09514-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10824/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10824-024-09514-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Cultural Economics is currently edited by Federico Etro and Douglas Noonan

More articles in Journal of Cultural Economics from Springer, The Association for Cultural Economics International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().