'Acting Wife': Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bursztyn, Leonardo; Fujiwara, Thomas; Pallais, Amanda
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; Princeton University; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR); Harvard University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20170029
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 3288-3319
• 关键词: gender-differences; MATE-SELECTION; FEMALE LEADERS; women; PREJUDICE; DYNAMICS; white; men

摘要

Do single women avoid career-enhancing actions because these actions signal undesirable traits, like ambition, to the marriage market? While married and unmarried female MBA students perform similarly when their performance is unobserved by classmates (on exams and problem sets), unmarried women have lower participation grades. In a field experiment, single female students reported lower desired salaries and willingness to travel and work long hours on a real-stakes placement questionnaire when they expected their classmates to see their preferences. Other groups' responses were unaffected by peer observability. A second experiment indicates the effects are driven by observability by single male peers.