Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates

13
of on-the-job-training. Further, if women are aware of the existence of statistical discrimination in
advance, this may discourage even well qualified graduates from investing in skills or discourage
them to apply for promotion.

Even if gender stereotypes are systematic and pervasive in our daily life (Sabini 1995), their use
does not have the same importance in every organizational context (Heilman 1997, Hunt et al.
2002). In Section 5 we try to identify some specific environment in which the use of stereotypes is
more or less likely to exert an influence on performance appraisal, and we verify that the
unexplained component of the gender pay gap increases or decreases in line with the influence of
the stereotype.

5 - Gender stereotyping in the workplace is more likely to occur when ...

We consider first a context in which the assessment of productivity is unnecessary (self-
employment), thereby eliminating the fuel for discrimination by employers (Section 5.1).

We then consider an environment in which the assessment of productivity is negligible (executive
jobs and temporary contracts), thus reducing the motivation of the evaluator to make an accurate
assessment (Section 5.2).

Finally, we study a context where the assessors are required to provide justifications of their choices
and must use objective criteria and structured evaluation procedures (recruitment through open
competition), thereby increasing the incentive for a more accurate assessment of individual
performance (Section 5.3).

5.1 - Context in which the assessment of productivity is unnecessary (self employment)

Sex stereotypes in performance evaluation do not operate when the assessment of individual
productivity is unnecessary, as in self-employment. The self employed are in fact employers of
themselves, and know their own productivity without any kind of assessment. Following Moore
(1983) we hypothesize that the existence of employer discrimination leads to some testable
prediction regarding earnings differences by sex for wage and salary workers versus their self-
employed counterparts. Self employment as a method of avoid discrimination by employers should
result in a higher gender pay gap among the self employed workers than among employees.

In our data (Tab. 6), the unexplained component of the gender pay gap is lower among the self-
employed workers than it is among employees.

<<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   >>

More intriguing information