Naming your daughter Jack: The effect of gender in the evaluation process within a competitive market

• In Event: 086 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology. Gender in the Economy

Abstract

Women's underrepresentation in high-status positions is commonly attributed to forms of bias. Specifically, it is posited that women face a higher bar in evaluations, or double standards, such that their performances are evaluated less favorably than those of similarly performing men. Alternative views have shown that men and women may not face different standards, however, especially when the task being evaluated is more closely linked to competitive market processes. Thus, we lack a complete understanding of when and how double standards penalize women in the evaluation process. We posit that to develop a more nuanced theory we must examine these issues in a competitive market, where attribution of performance is unbiased. Using a financial market setting, comprised of investment professionals, we are able to analyze the effect of gender across two stages of the evaluation process. We find that while women are less likely to be selected in the first stage, however, there is no further bias in the subsequent stage. Additionally, we are able to rule out that observed gender differences are attributed to women violating an industry norm. Instead, we find evidence that bias in the selection stage is primarily driven by the high search costs facing evaluators.

Authors

• Tristan L. Botelho, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Mabel Abraham, Massachusetts Institute of Technology