Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates

Carolina Castagnetti¹ Luisa Rosti

Università di Pavia Università di Pavia

October 23, 2010

Abstract

This paper addresses the gender pay gap among Italian university graduates on entry to the labour
market and stresses the importance of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual
productivity. Our data show that in contexts where the stereotype is most likely to occur, the
unexplained component of the gender pay gap is higher. Moreover, we find evidence that being
excellent at school does not ensures that a woman will be rewarded as an equivalently performing
man, but serves to counteract the gender bias in on-the-job evaluations.

JEL classification: J24, J7, J3

Keywords: Labour market, Italy, Gender pay gap, Education, Stereotypes

¹ Dipartimento di Economia Politica e Metodi Quantitativi, Via San Felice 5, 27100 Pavia, Italy,
[email protected], tel.++390382986217, corresponding author.

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