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Informed Choices: Gender Gaps in Career Advice

Author

Listed:
  • Yana Gallen

    (The University of Chicago)

  • Melanie Wasserman

    (University of California, Los Angeles)

Abstract
This paper estimates gender differences in access to informal information regarding the labor market. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek information from 10,000 working professionals about various career paths, and we randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. We focus the experimental design and analysis on two career attributes that prior research has shown to differentially affect the labor market choices of women: the extent to which a career accommodates work/life balance and has a competitive culture. When students ask broadly for information about a career, we find that female students receive substantially more information on work/life balance relative to male students. This gender difference persists when students disclose that they are concerned about work/life balance. In contrast, professionals mention workplace culture to male and female students at similar rates. After the study, female students are more dissuaded from their preferred career path than male students, and this difference is in part explained by professionals' greater emphasis on work/life balance when responding to female students. Finally, we elicit students' preferences for professionals and find that gender differences in information provision would remain if students contacted their most preferred professionals.

Suggested Citation

  • Yana Gallen & Melanie Wasserman, 2021. "Informed Choices: Gender Gaps in Career Advice," Working Papers 2021-025, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2021-025
    Note: MIP
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Sona Badalyan & Darya Korlyakova & Rastislav Rehak, 2023. "Disclosure Discrimination: An Experiment Focusing on Communication in the Hiring Process," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp743, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    2. Pauline Charousset & Marion Monnet, 2022. "Gendered Teacher Feedback, Students' Math Performance and Enrollment Outcomes: A Text Mining Approach," Working Papers halshs-03733956, HAL.
    3. Boring, Anne & Brown, Jennifer, 2024. "Gender and choices in higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    4. Alexander Coutts & Boon Han Koh & Zahra Murad, 2024. "The signals we give: Performance feedback, gender, and competition," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2024-02, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.
    5. Lea Heursen & Svenja Friess & Marina Chugunova, 2023. "Reputational Concerns and Advice-Seeking at Work," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 447, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Pauline Charousset & Marion Monnet, 2022. "Gendered Teacher Feedback, Students' Math Performance and Enrollment Outcomes: A Text Mining Approach," PSE Working Papers halshs-03733956, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    career information; gender; discrimination; correspondence study;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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