Arbeitspapier

Betting on Diversity – Occupational Segregation and Gender Stereotypes

Many occupations and industries are highly segregated with respect to gender. This segregation could be due to perceived job-specific productivity differences between men and women. It could also result from the belief that single-gender teams perform better. We investigate the two explanations in a lab experiment with students and in an online experiment with personnel managers. The subjects bet on the productivity of teams of different gender compositions in tasks that differ with respect to gender stereotypes. We obtain similar results in both samples. Women are picked more often for the stereotypically female task and men more often for the stereotypically male task. Subjects do not believe that homogeneous teams perform better but bet more on diverse teams, especially in the task with complementarities. Elicited expectations about the bets of others reveal that subjects expect the effect of the gender stereotypes of tasks but underestimate others' bets on diversity.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 10187

Classification
Wirtschaft
Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: General‡
Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
Subject
gender segregation
hiring decisions
teams
discrimination
stereotypes

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Fischbacher, Urs
Kübler, Dorothea
Stüber, Robert
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
(where)
Munich
(when)
2022

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Fischbacher, Urs
  • Kübler, Dorothea
  • Stüber, Robert
  • Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)

Time of origin

  • 2022

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