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Gender Differences in the Allocation of Low-Promotability Tasks: The Role of Backlash

Linda Babcock¹; María P. Recalde²; Lise Vesterlund³

¹ Heinz College and Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, BP 319B, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (e-mail: ) · ² Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2033 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006 (e-mail: ) · ³ Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, 4928 WW Posvar Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, and NBER (e-mail: )

This paper examines whether backlash exacerbates gender differences in time spent on low-promotability tasks. We ask whether gender differences found in previous research--women receiving more requests than men to do these tasks and women being more likely to accept such requests--amplify by the prospect of penalties for declining the request. We replicate prior findings but find no evidence that penalties increase the gender differences in task allocation. In addition, we find that the penalties men impose on others for saying “no” are larger than those imposed by women.

DOI

10.1257/aer.p20171018

Volume

107 (5)

Pages

131-135

Language

en

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Sources

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