The gender wage gap: what’s confidence got to do with it?

• In Event: 41021 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 21: Quantitative Methods

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that being self-confident can lead to higher pay, and that a shortage of self-confidence among women may explain why the gender wage gap persists. Extending research on the gender confidence gap, we consider whether the economic return of being self-confident is gendered. Analyzing data from the Midlife in the United States Study (1995-1996, 2004-2009 and 2013-2017), we demonstrate the critical role of self-confidence on wage income as well as the gendered impacts of self-confidence on wage income. Indeed, not only is women’s lower confidence associated with their relatively lower wage income, the effect of self-confidence on wage income is also significantly lower among women than among men. In other words, gender conditions the impact of confidence on wage income—being self-confident is rewarded unequally between the genders.

Author

• Joanne Ong, York University