International audienceWe present a new experiment that explores gender differences in both performance and compensation choices. While most of the previous studies have focused on tournament vs. piece-rate schemes, the originality of our study consists in examining the gender gap in the context of a flat wage scheme. Our data indicate that females exert a significantly higher effort than men in fixed payment schemes. We find however no gender difference in performance under the tournament scheme, due to a combination of two effects. On the one hand, men more significantly increase their effort when switching from a flat wage to a tournament scheme. On the other hand, when switching from the flat wage to a tournament scheme, women have less margin to increase performance since their effort was already relatively high with a flat wage. We also find that females are more likely than males to choose a flat-wage scheme than a tournament. This gap however narrows dramatically when feedback on previous experience is provided
In this paper, we examine labor market favoritism in a unique laboratory experiment design that can shed light on both the private benefits and spillover costs of employer favoritism (or discrimination). Group identity is induced on subjects such that each laboratory « society » consists of eight individuals each belonging to one of two different identity groups. In some treatments randomly assigned employer-subjects give preference rankings of potential worker-subjects who would make effort choices that impact employer payoffs. Though it is common knowledge that group identity in this environment provides no special productivity information and cannot facilitate communication or otherwise lower costs for the employer, employers preferentially rank in-group members. In such instances, the unemployed workers are aware that an intentional preference ranking resulted in their unemployment. Unemployed workers are allowed to destroy resources in a final stage of the game, which is a simple measure of the spillover effects of favoritism in our design. Though we find evidence that favoritism may privately benefit a firm in terms of higher worker effort, the spillover costs that result highlight a reason to combat favoritism/discrimination. This result also identifies one potential micro-foundation of societal unrest that may link back to labor market opportunity.
Employee referral programs, while efficient for the employer, have been shown to amplify sex-based occupational segregation in the labour markets. We present evidence from a laboratory experiment designed to shed light on same-gender bias in job referrals within gender-balanced networks. Our data suggest that women tend to favor women in their referral choice, whereas men do not attach much importance to the gender of potential candidates. Our experimental design allows us to disentangle between statistical discrimination, preferences, and pure same-gender bias. Our findings add to the existing literature by highlighting that gendered networks alone do not explain the observed gender homophily in referred-referrer pairs.
International audienceWe use data from the Trajectoires et Origines survey to analyze ethnic gaps in education and labor-market outcomes between second-generation immigrants and their French-native counterparts. Our three main findings underscore the importance of family background in explaining lifelong ethnic inequalities. First, second-generation immigrants are on average less likely to experience education success than their native counterparts, with the education gap mainly being rooted in ethnic differences in family backgrounds. Second, while second-generation immigrants have on average a lower probability of employment and lower wages than natives, both gaps are mainly explained by the differences in education. Third, we find considerable heterogeneity across ethnic groups
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