Working Paper: NBER ID: w26345
Authors: Christine L. Exley; Judd B. Kessler
Abstract: In applications, interviews, performance reviews, and many other environments, individuals subjectively describe their ability and performance to others. We run a series of experiments, involving over 4,000 participants from online labor markets and over 10,000 school-aged youth. We find a large gender gap in self-promotion: Women subjectively describe their ability and performance to potential employers less favorably than equally performing men. Even when all incentives to promote are removed, however, the gender gap remains. The gender gap in self-promotion is reflective of an underlying gender gap in how individuals subjectively evaluate their own performance. This underlying gender gap proves persistent and arises as early as the sixth grade.
Keywords: gender gap; self-promotion; subjective evaluations; performance; labor market outcomes
JEL Codes: C91; D90; J16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Gender (J16) | Self-evaluation of performance (C52) |
| Informed self-evaluation of performance (C52) | Self-promotion gap (J62) |
| Promotion incentives (M51) | Gender gap in self-evaluation (J16) |
| Gender (J16) | Intrinsic differences in self-evaluation (D91) |
| Gender gap in self-promotion (J16) | Persistence across demographic contexts (J10) |