IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/ph3w5.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Origin and Scale of Gender Inequality: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Radford, Jason

Abstract

In the United States, women make roughly 75% of what men make. This inequality is reduced to roughly 92% once factors like occupation and job performance are controlled. The central debate over which number is correct has been whether these occupational and behavioral inequalities are related to gender or incidental to it. This study uses a natural experiment from a crowdfunding website for public school teachers to answer this question. The study shows there is no occupational and behavioral inequality in the likelihood of funding when teachers are anonymous. Yet, there is substantial inequality after they are identified as “Mr. Smith” or “Ms. Jones.” These results indicate gender gaps by occupation and behavior only occur as a result of exposure to gender and that estimates of gender inequality are likely under-inflated by thirty percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Radford, Jason, 2018. "The Origin and Scale of Gender Inequality: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," SocArXiv ph3w5, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:ph3w5
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/ph3w5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5ae765e7efd3260010d9d3c9/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/ph3w5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2006. "The U.S. Gender Pay Gap in the 1990S: Slowing Convergence," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(1), pages 45-66, October.
    2. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    3. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Patrick Kline, 2016. "Bargaining, Sorting, and the Gender Wage Gap: Quantifying the Impact of Firms on the Relative Pay of Women," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 633-686.
    4. Claudia Goldin, 2014. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1091-1119, April.
    5. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01gb19f581g is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grissom, Jason A. & Timmer, Jennifer D. & Nelson, Jennifer L. & Blissett, Richard S.L., 2021. "Unequal pay for equal work? Unpacking the gender gap in principal compensation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Barigozzi, Francesca & Cremer, Helmuth & Roeder, Kerstin, 2018. "Women's career choices, social norms and child care policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 162-173.
    3. Bamieh, Omar & Ziegler, Lennart, 2022. "Can Wage Transparency Alleviate Gender Sorting in the Labor Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 15363, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Gutierrez, Federico H., 2018. "Commuting Patterns, the Spatial Distribution of Jobs and the Gender Pay Gap in the U.S," GLO Discussion Paper Series 282, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde, 2017. "When the opportunity knocks: large structural shocks and gender wage gaps," GRAPE Working Papers 2, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    6. Amano-Patiño, N. & Baron, T. & Xiao, P., 2020. "Human Capital Accumulation, Equilibrium Wage-Setting and the Life-Cycle Gender Pay Gap," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2010, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    7. Männasoo, Kadri, 2022. "Working hours and gender wage differentials: Evidence from the American Working Conditions Survey," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Barigozzi, Francesca & Cremer, Helmuth & Roeder, Kerstin, 2020. "Having it all, for all: Child-care subsidies and income distribution reconciled," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 188-211.
    9. d'Agostino, Giorgio & Patriarca, Fabrizio & Pieroni, Luca & Scarlato, Margherita, 2020. "The perverse effects of hiring credits as a place-based policy: Evidence from Southern Italy," MPRA Paper 102240, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Masso, Jaan & Meriküll, Jaanika & Vahter, Priit, 2022. "The role of firms in the gender wage gap," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 454-473.
    11. Heyman, Fredrik & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars, 2017. "Talent, Career Choice and Competition: The Gender Wage Gap at the Top," Working Paper Series 1169, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 06 Mar 2023.
    12. Sarah Fleche & Anthony Lepinteur & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2018. "Gender Norms and Relative Working Hours: Why Do Women Suffer More Than Men from Working Longer Hours Than Their Partners?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 163-168, May.
    13. Monica Costa Dias & Robert Joyce & Francesca Parodi, 2019. "The gender pay gap in the UK: children and experience in work," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 594, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    14. Mahdi Gholami & Samuel Muehlemann, 2024. "Mastering Math: A Gateway to Better Firms and Higher Earnings," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0212, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised May 2024.
    15. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Kelly Shue, 2020. "The Gender Gap in Housing Returns," NBER Working Papers 26914, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Buhai, I. Sebastian & van der Leij, Marco J., 2023. "A Social Network Analysis of Occupational Segregation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    17. Anne‐Sophie Bruno & Nathalie Greenan & Jeremy Tanguy, 2021. "Does the Gender Mix Influence Collective Bargaining on Gender Equality? Evidence from France," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 479-520, October.
    18. Keller, Wolfgang & Molina, Teresa & Olney, William W., 2023. "The gender gap among top business executives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 270-286.
    19. Forth, John & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2022. "Earnings Discrimination in the Workplace," IZA Discussion Papers 15357, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Fortin, Nicole M. & Bell, Brian & Böhm, Michael, 2017. "Top earnings inequality and the gender pay gap: Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 107-123.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:ph3w5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.