Preferences for job tasks and gender gaps in the labor market

Last registered on August 07, 2020

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Preferences for job tasks and gender gaps in the labor market

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0006258

Initial registration date

August 06, 2020

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

August 07, 2020, 8:30 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

United States of America

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Madeleine Gelblum

Affiliation

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2018-02-15

End date

2018-06-15

Keywords

Gender, Labor

Additional Keywords

preferences, workplace amenities, job tasks, occupational choice, gender wage gap

JEL code(s)

J16, J31, J24

Secondary IDs

Abstract

Women and men work in markedly different jobs, leading to persistent occupational segregation by gender. This paper provides evidence that gender differences in how individuals value activities performed at work, termed job tasks, can help explain these sorting patterns. I conduct a hypothetical choice experiment to elicit workers’ willingness to pay for a set of tasks that are more frequently performed by one gender than the other. The experimental scenarios ask participants to choose between two hypothetical jobs that differ in terms of pay and the amount of time spent on a gender-typical task, but are otherwise the same. I find significant gender differences in willingness to pay for three of the five tasks that I examine. Willingness to pay is significantly higher among participants who report spending more time on a task in their current job, suggesting that estimates are correlated with actual sorting behavior. I show that gender differences in preferences for the tasks that I investigate can account for a substantial portion of occupational segregation in the U.S. labor market.

External Link(s)

Paper draft

Registration Citation

Citation

Gelblum, Madeleine. 2020. "Preferences for job tasks and gender gaps in the labor market." AEA RCT Registry. August 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6258-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2018-02-15

Intervention End Date

2018-06-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

In each of the five hypothetical scenarios shown to each participant, the outcome is whether the participant indicates that they would prefer the job that involves more time spent on the gender-typical task in question, or the job that involves less time spent on the gender-typical task in question.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

This project conducts a hypothetical choice experiment embedded in a survey to elicit workers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a set of five gender-typical tasks that women perform more frequently than men, or vice versa. I recruit and compensate participants in the experimental survey using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The survey asks participants to consider a series of hypothetical scenarios, each associated with one of the five gender-typical tasks. In the scenarios, participants are asked to envision that they have been given a choice between two jobs that differ in terms of pay and the amount of time spent on the focal task. Participants are then asked to indicate which job they would prefer. I randomize the order in which the scenarios appear and the display order of the answer choices within each scenario.

In each hypothetical scenario, one job is randomly selected to offer the participant’s wage in the current or most recent job. The other job offers a wage that is higher than the participant’s current or most recent wage by a randomly selected percentage. Participants are told to assume that other than the wage and the amount of time spent on the focal task, the two jobs in each scenario are exactly the same in all other ways, including total hours worked per week, schedule, co-workers, benefits, and the set of activities they do when not performing the focal task.

The experiment elicits preferences for five conceptual categories of tasks that are performed in a broad range of jobs and are not tied to specific credentials. The task measures are based on variables from the O*NET, a database of occupational characteristics, that are correlated with the occupational female share in the American Community Survey (ACS).

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization is performed by the survey software (Qualtrics).

Randomization Unit

The difference in wage offers between the two hypothetical jobs is randomized at the level of the participant by scenario.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Approximately 1,900 participants completed the experimental survey.

Sample size: planned number of observations

Approximately 1,900 participants completed the experimental survey.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Approximately 1,900 participants completed the experimental survey. Each participant completed five hypothetical scenarios, and the difference in wage offers between the two jobs in each scenario was randomized.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB