Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates



11

Note that the focus of Section 3 is not the impact of childcare and other forms of caregiving on the
gender pay gap. The focus is on statistical discrimination, that is pre-judgment by which women
may be perceived as more committed to caregiving than to their jobs and less competent than other
workers, regardless of how their caregiving responsibilities actually impact their work. Relying on
these stereotypes, some employers may assume that childcare responsibilities will make female
employees less dependable than male employees, even if a woman is not a mother and has no
intention to become a mother.

4 - The effect of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual productivity

In Italy, equal pay and sex discrimination legislation have been in place since 1991. New entrants to
the labor market in the mid-2000s grew up in a society which encouraged them to take equal
opportunities for granted. Similarly, no employer would deny in principle the employees right to be
evaluated as a single individual, that is according to their personal characteristics rather than as
members of a group having certain average characteristics. As a consequence, it is tempting to
believe that discrimination is a thing of the past, currently carried out only by a small set of
uninformed people. Yet even today employment decisions based on gender stereotypes rather than
on the specific work performance may prevent many women from advancing in their careers.
Beliefs and prejudices based on gender preclude the accurate assessment of individual productivity
(Martell and DeSmet 2001), and the pervasiveness of sex role expectations is a primary cause that
prevents women to reach top managerial positions
(Schein 2001). Even very small differences in
treatment can, as they accumulate, have major consequences in salary, promotion, and prestige,
including advancement to leadership positions (Valian 1998; Becker 1985; Merton 1968).

Research has shown that the “ideal employee” is currently still in line with characteristics such as
rarely taking time off, having few personal obligations, and maintaining an unwavering
commitment to the job over long periods of time. But these expectations associated with the
prototype model of the employee are linked to a time when the workforce was comprised mostly of
men married to women confined to household duties and childcare. As more mothers have entered
the labour force, families have increasingly faced conflicts between work and caregiving
responsibilities, resulting in a “
caregiver stereotype” or “maternal wall” that prevents many women
from advancing in their careers (Heilman and Okimoto 2008).

Similarly, the “successful manager” is consistently described as more similar to the way men are
viewed than to the way women are viewed (Heilman
et al. 1989; Schein, 1973). Men are
stereotypically perceived as “more ambitious”, “more agentic” and “better leaders” than women



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