Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/145266 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10132
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In addition to discrimination, market power, and human capital, gender differences in risk preferences might also contribute to observed gender wage gaps. We conduct laboratory experiments in which subjects choose between a risky (in terms of exposure to unemployment) and a secure job after being assigned in early rounds to both types of jobs. Both jobs involve the same typing task. The risky job adds the element of a known probability that the typing opportunity will not be available in any given period. Subjects were informed of the exogenous risk premium being offered for the risky job. Women were more likely than men to select the secure job, and these job choices accounted for between 40% and 77% of the gender wage gap in the experiments. That women were more risk averse than men was also manifest in the Pratt-Arrow Constant Absolute Risk Aversion parameters estimated from a random utility model adaptation of the mean-variance portfolio model.
Subjects: 
occupational choice
gender wage differentials
risk aversion
lab experiment
JEL: 
J16
J24
J31
C91
D81
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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