|
EconStor >
Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), Essen >
Ruhr Economic Papers, RWI >
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/29922
|
| | |
| Title: | | Competition and gender prejudice: are discriminatory employers doomed to fail?  |
| Authors: | | Weber, Andrea Maria Zulehner, Christine |
| Issue Date: | | 2009 |
| Series/Report no.: | | Ruhr economic papers 146 |
| Abstract: | | According to Becker's (1957) famous theory on discrimination, entrepreneurs with a strong prejudice against female workers forgo profits by submitting to their tastes. In a competitive market their firms lack efficiency and are therefore forced to leave. We present new empirical evidence for this prediction by studying the survival of startup firms in a large longitudinal matched employer-employee data set from Austria. Our results show that firms with strong preferences for discrimination, i.e. a low share of female employees relatively to the industry average, have significantly shorter survival rates. This is especially relevant for firms starting out with female shares in the lower tail of the distribution. They exit about 18 months earlier than firms with a median share of females. We see no differences in survival between firms at the top of the female share distribution and at the median, though. We further document that highly discriminatory firms that manage to survive submit to market powers and increase their female workforce over time. |
| Subjects: | | Firm survival profitability female employment discrimination, market test matched employer-employee data |
| JEL: | | J16 J71 L25 |
| ISBN: | | 978-3-86788-165-4 |
| Document Type: | | Working Paper |
| Appears in Collections: | | Publikationen von Forscherinnen und Forschern des RWI Ruhr Economic Papers, RWI
|
| |
| | |
Download bibliographical data as:
BibTeX
|
| |
Share on:http://hdl.handle.net/10419/29922
|
Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
|