Knowing When to Ask: The Cost of Leaning In / Christine L. Exley, Muriel Niederle, Lise Vesterlund.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Exley, Christine L.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Niederle, Muriel.

Vesterlund, Lise.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22961.

NBER working paper series no. w22961

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Knowing When to Ask

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

Gender differences in the propensity to negotiate are often used to explain the gender wage gap, popularizing the push for women to "lean-in." We use a laboratory experiment to examine the effect of leaning-in. Despite men and women achieving similar and positive returns when they must negotiate, we find that women avoid negotiations more often than men. While this suggests that women would benefit from leaning-in, a direct test of the counterfactual proves otherwise. Women appear to positively select into negotiations and to know when to ask. By contrast, we find no significant evidence of a positive selection for men.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2016.