Job Search and the Gender Wage Gap
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (CST)
- Chair: Andreas I. Mueller, University of Texas-Austin
Gender Differences in Job Search Behavior and the Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Business Majors
Abstract
To understand gender differences in the job search process, we collect rich information on job offers and acceptances from past and current undergraduates of Boston University's Questrom School of Business. We document two novel empirical facts: (1) there is a clear gender difference in the timing of job offer acceptance, with women accepting jobs substantially earlier than men, and (2) the gender earnings gap in accepted offers narrows in favor of women over the course of the job search period. Using survey data on risk preferences and beliefs about expected future earnings, we present empirical evidence that the patterns in job search can be partly explained by the higher levels of risk aversion displayed by women and the higher levels of overoptimism (and slower belief updating) displayed by men. We develop a job search model that incorporates these gender differences in risk aversion and (over)optimism about prospective offers. Our counterfactual exercises show that simple policies such as eliminating ``exploding offers" by allowing students to hold onto offers for an additional month, or providing them with accurate information about the labor market, can reduce the gender gap significantly.On-The-Job Search and the Gender Wage Gap
Abstract
This paper documents gender differences in the process of on-the-job search and quantifies the contribution of these differences to the gender wage gap. Job-to-job transitions are often associated with large wage gains and dissatisfaction with pay and benefits has been shown to be an import factor in the decision to search for a new and better job. For these reasons, on-the-job search likely contributes to the existing gender wage gaps. To shed light on this, we document new facts about job-to-job transitions and the process of on-the-job search using novel data from the Job Search Supplement of the Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE), which asks a rich set of questions about the job search process to both non-employed and employed job seekers. We document that employed women spend more time searching for another job than men, but their search effort is less elastic to their current wage. We set up a search model with on-the-job search, endogenous search effort and non-wage amenities and calibrate it towards these facts. Our model calibration suggests that women face both a flatter and more slippery wage ladder, each of which is contributing to sizeable differentials in wages by gender.The Central Role of the Ask Gap in Gender Pay Inequality
Abstract
The gender ask gap measures the extent to which women ask for lower salaries than comparable men. This paper studies the role of the ask gap in generating wage inequality, using novel data from Hired.com, an online recruitment platform for full-time engineering jobs in the United States. To use the platform, job candidates must post an ask salary, stating how much they want to make in their next job. Firms then apply to candidates by offering them a bid salary, solely based on the candidate’s resume and ask salary. If the candidate is hired, a final salary is recorded. After adjusting for resume characteristics, the ask gap is 2.9%, the gap in bid salaries is 2.2%, and the gap in final offers is 1.4%. Remarkably, further controlling for the ask salary explains the entirety of the residual gender gaps in bid and final salaries. To estimate the market-level effects of an increase in women’s ask salaries, I exploit an unanticipated change in how candidates were prompted to provide their ask. For some candidates in mid-2018, the answer box used to solicit the ask salary was changed from an empty field to an entry pre-filled with the median bid salary for similar candidates. Using an interrupted time series design, I find that this change drove the ask gap, the bid and the final offer gap to zero. In addition, women did not receive fewer bids or final offers than men did due to the change, suggesting they faced little penalty for demanding wages comparable to men.JEL Classifications
- J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
- J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs