The Gender Wage Gap a Product of Misogyny, Not Just Gender Norms

37 Pages Posted: 28 Jun 2022

Abstract

I construct a novel measure of misogyny using Google Trends data on searches that include derogatory terms for women. I show that misogyny is an economically meaningful and statistically significant predictor of the wage gap, and use it to test the predictions of two influential labor market discrimination models. I find that the gender wage gap is inconsistent with the Becker model of taste-based discrimination, but that it fits Black’s search model of discrimination which allows for discrimination from even a small group of misogynists to result in a wage gap.

Keywords: Gender wage gap, wage discrimination, gender norms, misogyny

Suggested Citation

Maloney, Elizabeth, The Gender Wage Gap a Product of Misogyny, Not Just Gender Norms. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4148314 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4148314

Elizabeth Maloney (Contact Author)

University of California, Irvine ( email )

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