Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates

Castagnetti, Carolina and Rosti, Luisa (2010): Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates.

Abstract

This paper addresses the gender pay gap among Italian university graduates on entry to the labour market and stresses the importance of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual productivity. Our data show that in contexts where the stereotype is most likely to occur, the unexplained component of the gender pay gap is higher. Moreover, we find evidence that being excellent at school does not ensures that a woman will be rewarded as an equivalently performing man, but serves to counteract the gender bias in on-the-job evaluations

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Labour market; Italy; Gender pay gap; Education; Stereotypes
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J30 - General

References

Altonji, J. G. and R. M. Blank (1999), Race and Gender in the Labor Market, in Ashenfelter, O. C. and D. Card (eds.), Handbook of Labour Economics, Elsevier Science Publishers, 3, 48, 3143-3259.

Arrow, K.J. (1973), Higher Education as a Filter, Journal of Public Economics, 2, 193-216.

Becker, G. S. (1957), The Economics of Discrimination, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Becker, G. S. (1985), Human capital, effort, and the sexual division of labor‚ Journal of Labor Economics, 3, 1, 33–58.

Blinder, A. (1973), ‘Wage discrimination: Reduced form and structural estimates’. Journal of Human Resources 8, 436–455.

Booth, A., M. Francesconi, and J. Frank (2002) “Temporary jobs: stepping stones or dead ends?”, Economic Journal, 112, 89-213.

Brown, C. and M. Corcoran (1997), Sex-Based Differences in School Content and the Male-Female Wage Gap, Journal of Labor Economics, 15, 431-465.

Castagnetti, C. and L. Rosti (2009), Effort allocation in tournaments: the effect of gender on Italian graduate performance, Economics of Education Review, 28, 3, 357-369.

Castagnetti, C. and L. Rosti (2010), The gender gap in academic achievements of Italian graduates, in Samuel A. Davies (ed.), Gender Gap: Causes, Experiences and Effects, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., NY.

Coate, S. and G. C. Loury (1993), Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?, American Economic Review, 83, 1220-1240.

Cole, M.S., H. S. Feild, and W. F. Giles (2004), Interaction of Recruiter and Applicant Gender in Resume Evaluation: A Field Study, Sex Roles, 51, 9/10, 597-608.

Correll, S. J., S. Benard and I. Paik (2007), Getting a Job: Is There a. Motherhood Penalty?, American Journal of Sociology, 112, 5, 1297-1338.

Crosby, F. (1984), The Denial of personal discrimination, American Behavioral Scientist, 27, 371-386.

Daymont, T. N. and P. J. Andrisani (1984), Job preferences, college major, and the gender gap in earnings. Journal of Human Resources 19, 3, 408-428.

Devine, P. G. (1989), Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5-18.

Dobbins, G.H., R. L Cardy and D. M. Truxillo (1988), The Effects of purpose of appraisal and individuals differences in stereotypes of women on sex differences in performance ratings: A Laboratory and field study, Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 551-558.

Dobbs, M. and W. D. Crano (2001), Outgroup accountability in the minimal group paradigm: Implications for aversive racism and social identity theory, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 355-364.

Dovidio, J. F. (2001), On the nature of contemporary prejudice: The third wave, Journal of Social Issues, 57, 4, 829–849.

Eagly, A. H. and S. J. Karau (2002), Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice toward Female Leaders, Psychological Review, 573, 574-75

Eagly, A. H., and M. C. Johannesen-Schmidt (2001), The leadership styles of women and men. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 781-797.

Eide, E. (1994), College Major Choice and Changes in the Gender Wage Gap, Contemporary Economic Policy, 12, 55-64.

Eurofound (2010), www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2010/18/en/2/EF1018EN.pdf

Eurostat (2009), Development of econometric methods to evaluate the gender pay gap using Structure of Earnings Survey data, Eurostat Methodologies and Working Papers.

Fiske, S. T., and L. E. Stevens (1993), What's so special about sex? Gender stereotyping and discrimination. In S. Oskamp and M. Costanzo (Eds.), Gender issues in contemporary society: Applied social psychology annual, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 173-196.

Fuegen, K., M. Biernat, E. Haines and K. Deaux (2004), Mothers and Fathers in the Workplace: How Gender and Parental Status Influence Judgments of Job-Related Competence, Journal of Social Issues, 60, 4, 737–754

Grimshaw, D. and J. Rubery (2002). The Adjusted Gender Pay Gap: A Critical Appraisal of Standard Decomposition Techniques, Manchester School of Management, UMIST, Manchester, UK.

Hamilton, D. L. and T. K. Trolier (1986), Stereotypes and Stereotyping: An Overview of the Cognitive Approach, in J. F. Dovidio and S. L. Gaertner (eds.), Prejudice, Discrimination and Racism. Orlando and London: Academic Press, 127-163.

Heckman, J. J. (1979), Sample selection bias as a specification error, Econometrica, 47, 153-161.

Heilman, M. E. (1997), Sex discrimination and the affirmative action remedy: The role of sex stereotypes, Journal of Business Ethics, 16, 9, 877-889.

Heilman, M. E. (2001), Description and prescription: How gender stereotypes prevent women's ascent up the organizational ladder, Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 657-674.

Heilman, M. E., C. Block, R. Martell and M. Simon (1989), Has anything changed? Current characterizations of males, females and managers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 935-942.

Heilman, M. E., C. J. Block, and R. F. Martell (1995), Sex stereotypes: Do they influence perceptions of managers? Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10, 6) 237-252.

Heilman, M. E., and T. G. Okimoto (2008), Motherhood: A potential source of bias in employment decisions, Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 1, 189-198.

Hersch, J. (2006), Sex Discrimination in the Labor Market, Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics 2, 3, 1-85.

Hunt, J. S., E. Borgida, K. M. Kelly and D. Burgess (2002), Gender Stereotyping: Scientific Status, in Faigman, D. L., D. H. Kaye, M. J. Saks, and J. Sanders (Eds.), Modern scientific evidence: The law and science of expert testimony (2nd ed.), St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 2, 384-426

Jost, J. T., and A. C. Kay (2005), Exposure to benevolent sexism and complementary gender stereotypes: Consequences for specific and diffuse forms of system justification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 498-509.

Kobrynowicz, D., and M. Biernat (1997), Decoding subjective evaluations: How stereotypes provide shifting standards, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 579-601.

Lin, E. S. (2010), Gender wage gaps by college major in Taiwan: Empirical evidence from the 1997-2003 Manpower Utilization Survey, Economics of Education Review, 29, 1, 156-164

Loh, E. S. (1994), Employment Probation as a Sorting Mechanism, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 47, 471-486.

Martell, R. F., and A. L. DeSmet (2001), Gender stereotyping in the managerial ranks: A Bayesian approach to measuring beliefs about the leadership abilities of male and female managers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 1223−1231.

Merton, R. K. (1968), Social Theory and Social Structure, (1949; revised and expanded, 1968), New York: Free Press.

Moore, R. L. (1983), Employer Discrimination: Evidence from Self-Employed Workers, Review of Economics and Statistics, 65, 3, 496–501.

Nieva, V. and B. Gutek (1980), Sex effects on evaluation, Academy of Management Review, 5, 267-276.

Oaxaca, R. (1973), Male–female wage differentials in urban labor markets, International Economic Review 14, 693–709.

Olian, J. D., D. P. Schwab and Y. Haberfeld, (1988) “The impact of applicant gender compared to qualifications on hiring recommendations: A meta-analysis of experimental studies”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 41, 180–195.

Riley, J. G. (2001), Silver signals: 25 years of screening and signalling, Journal of Economic Literature, 39, 432-478.

Rustichelli, E. (2010) (ed.) Rompere il cristallo : i risultati di un'indagine Isfol sui differenziali retributivi di genere in Italia, I libri del Fondo sociale europeo, ISFOL, Roma.

Sabini, J. (1995), Social Psychology, New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company.

Sackett, P. R., C. L. DuBois, and A.W. Noe (1991), Tokenism in performance evaluation: The Effects of work group representation on male-female and white-black differences in performance ratings, Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 263-267.

Schein, V. E. (1973), The Relationship between sex-role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics, Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 95-100.

Schein, V. E. (2001), A Global Look at Psychological Barriers to Women’s Progress in Management Journal of Social Issues, 57, 4, 675–688.

Spence, M. (1973), Job Market Signaling, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 3, 355-374.

Stiglitz, J. E. (1975) ,The Theory of «Screening», Education, and the Distribution of Income, American Economic Review, 3, 283-300.

Swim, J., and L. J. Sanna (1996), He’s skilled, she’s lucky: A meta analysis of observers attributions for women’s and men’s successes and failures, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 507-519.

Tetlock, P.E. and J. I. Kim (1987), Accountability and judgment processes in a personality prediction task, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 700-709.

Valian, V. (1998), Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Wang, R. and A. Weiss (1998), Probation, Layoffs, and Wage-Tenure Profiles: A Sorting Explanation, Labour Economics, 5, 359-383.

Welle, B. and Heilman, M. E. (2007). Formal and informal discrimination against women at work. In D.

Steiner, S. W. Gilliland & D. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social issues in management: Managing social and ethical issues in organizations. Westport, CT: Information Age Publishers.

Weiss, A. (1995), Human capital and sorting models, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9, 133-154.

Williams, J., and N. Segal (2003), Beyond the maternal wall: Relief for family caregivers who are discriminated against on the job, Harvard Women’s Law Journal, 26, 77-162.