Gender Differences in Self-Promotion and Career Advice

Rigissa Megalokonomou (), Juliana Silva Goncalves () and Roel van Veldhuizen
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Rigissa Megalokonomou: Monash University
Juliana Silva Goncalves: University of Sydney
Roel van Veldhuizen: Lund University

No 18777, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We study the role of self-promotion and career advice in sustaining gender differences in labor market outcomes. We conduct a pre-registered experiment in which “advisers†advise “workers†to attempt either a more or a less ambitious task. We find that women promote themselves less than men and, as a result, are 12 percentage points less likely to be advised to choose the more ambitious task. This gender gap in advice persists across both quantitative and qualitative self-assessments and is robust to variation in advisers' information sets — including when advisers observe workers' actual performance — but is eliminated and even reversed when advisers are informed of the gender gap in self-promotion.

Keywords: advice; gender; self-promotion; randomized experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D91 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18777

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