The Origins of Gender Differences in Competitiveness and Earnings Expectations: Causal Evidence from a Mentoring Intervention
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Abstract:
We present evidence on the role of the social environment for the development of gender differ-
ences in competitiveness and earnings expectations. First, we document that the gender gap
in competitiveness and earnings expectations is more pronounced among adolescents with low
socioeconomic status (SES). We further document that there is a positive association between
the competitiveness of mothers and their daughters, but not between the competitiveness of
mothers and their sons. Second, we show that a randomized mentoring intervention that
exposes low-SES children to predominantly female role models causally affects girls' willing-
ness to compete and narrows both the gender gap in competitiveness as well as the gender
gap in earnings expectations. Together, the results highlight the importance of the social
environment in shaping willingness to compete and earnings expectations at a young age.Keywords:
Gender gap
Community constitutes one important context that influences the decision and choices in adolescents’ educational development and life course. Little research has investigated how educational expectations differ between the rural and urban community in China. This study constructs a combined theoretical framework of family socioeconomic status and social capital to explain how family human, financial, and social capital affect the community difference of expectations. Using data from the Chinese Families Panel Studies 2010, linear regression models are used to examine these differences. The results indicate that the observed urban advantage in educational expectations result from the higher family socioeconomic status, and the more close relationship of parents and children in learning activities, while the intergenerational closure of the rural community helps to narrow the gap. The findings also suggest that the explanatory power of different indicators of SES and social capital does vary across community context. Parental education is a significant predictor of urban expectations, while parental occupational status affects significantly only rural expectations. While within-family social capital consistently plays an important role in explaining adolescents’ education expectations, between-family social capital is only significantly related to the rural group. (Less)
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Abstract By investigating deep-rooted cultural norms, this paper explores whether and how traditional gender role attitudes impact income gaps between men and women and identifies causal effects via instrumental variable and other causal inference methods. Based on data from the Chinese General Social Survey in 2013, the results show that traditional gender role attitudes have a strong negative effect to the earnings of women but have no significant effect on men’s incomes. Through Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, this research finds that the different effects of gender role attitudes on the incomes of men and women appear to play a prominent role in causing the gender gap in earnings. In addition, gender role attitudes have an indirect and broad effect on gender income inequality through educational attainment, labor force participation, working hours, and occupational status. These results provide us with a new perspective for understanding the persistence and mechanisms of gender income stratification under educational equalization and have implications for gender equality policies.
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In this article, we are interested in the differences in the educational pathways and subsequent labour market outcomes by social origin and gender. We apply sequence analyses to model the educational trajectories and conduct regression analyses to determine how the individual’s own social status and the salary at labour market entry differs. First, our results show that educational pathways vary by parental status and gender when controlling for reading and mathematics/science skills. Men and pupils with a lower socioeconomic background are overrepresented in vocational education, whereas women and pupils with a more privileged socioeconomic background more often pursue general and academic tracks. Second, these different trajectories lead to unequal occupational status and income. Besides these indirect effects, significant direct effects of parental status and gender on the individual’s own occupational status and salary can be found. Together, these findings provide a broad overview of the emergence of inequalities by gender and social origin over the early life course, ranging from differences in skills learned in school to labour market outcomes.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to broaden the domain of the gender pay gap research by exploring individuals' perceptions of it. Examining the factors that have an impact on the way individuals perceive the gender pay gap helps answering the question of why it persists and how to overcome it. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides a conceptual model of the factors proposed to influence individuals' perceptions of the gender pay gap by adopting social comparison, equity, occupational socialization, relative deprivation, expectancy and social dominance theories as well gender socialization perspective. Findings According to the conceptual framework, such individual factors as pay expectations, gender role orientation, perceived pay fairness, gender, age, marital status and education facilitate the perceived gender pay gap. Furthermore, gender composition of employment sector and occupational status predict individuals' perceptions of the gender pay gap. Finally, welfare state regime and the degree of public awareness constitute the perceived gender pay gap. Practical implications Besides, the obvious suggestion of eliminating the gender pay gap, the paper suggests that more efforts should be made by media and governments to discuss the concept of the gender pay gap and make women aware of their rights and opportunities. Originality/value The main of this paper is that it draws together different theoretical perspectives into the model of the perceived gender pay gap.
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This paper examines the links between gender differences in attitudes towards economic risk and the gender pay gap. Consistent with the literature on the socio-economic determinants of attitudes towards economic risk, it shows that females are much more risk averse than males. It then extends this research to show that workers with more favorable attitudes towards risk are associated with higher earnings, and that gender differences in attitudes towards economic risk can account for a small, though important, part of the standardized gender pay gap.
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While there is an extensive literature on intergenerational transmission of economic outcomes (education, health and income for example), many of the pathways through which these outcomes are transmitted are not as well understood. We address this deficit by analysing the relationship between socio-economic status and child outcomes in university, based on a rich and unique dataset of university students. While large socio-economic differences in academic performance exist at the point of entry into university, these differences are substantially narrowed during the period of study. Importantly, the differences across socio-economic backgrounds in university grade attainment for female students is explained by intermediating variables such as personality, risk attitudes and time preferences, and subject/college choices. However, for male students, we explain less than half of the socio-economic gradient through these same pathways. Despite the weakening socio-economic effect in grade attainment, a key finding is that large socio-economic differentials in the earnings expectations of university students persist, even when controlling for grades in addition to our rich set of controls. Our findings pose a sizable challenge for policy in this area as they suggest that equalising educational outcomes may not translate into equal labour market outcomes.
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