Eliciting gendered patterns in labour market preferences and biases in expectations: an experimental approach

Abstract

Since there are certain patterns that remain unaccounted to explain gender differences in the labour market, an experiment has been carried out in order to explore the factors influencing the formation of expectations among university students and to understand the underlying reasons why these differences still exist. Although we could not find gender differences in expectations, we do obtain a relationship between the latter and degree choice. In an attempt to relate levels of risk aversion to labour market preferences, we draw that high levels of risk aversion are unable to explain the preferences for types of public employment, but we stand with a high level of significance that women tend to prefer these jobs. These findings support the presence of the glass ceiling phenomenon and the persistent gender wage gap observed between the public and private sectors.