IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13983.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bias and Discrimination: What Do We Know?

Author

Listed:
  • Della Giusta, Marina

    (University of Turin)

  • Bosworth, Steven J.

    (University of Reading)

Abstract

The paper presents the economic literature on gender bias, illustrating the underpinnings in the psychology of bias and stereotyping; the incorporation of these insights into current theoretical and empirical research in economics, and the literature on methods to contrast bias presenting evidence (where it exists) of their effectiveness. The second part of the paper presents results of an experiment in revealing unconscious bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Della Giusta, Marina & Bosworth, Steven J., 2020. "Bias and Discrimination: What Do We Know?," IZA Discussion Papers 13983, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13983.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Orley Ashenfelter & Ronald Oaxaca, 1987. "The Economics of Discrimination Thirty Years Later: Economists Enter the Courtroom," Working Papers 596, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Scott E. Carrell & Marianne E. Page & James E. West, 2010. "Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1101-1144.
    3. Booth, Alison L., 2009. "Gender and competition," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 599-606, December.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Michela Carlana & Eliana La Ferrara & Paolo Pinotti, 2018. "Revealing Stereotypes: Evidence from Immigrants in Schools," NBER Working Papers 25333, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. repec:fth:prinin:216 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Katherine Baldiga Coffman, 2014. "Evidence on Self-Stereotyping and the Contribution of Ideas," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1625-1660.
    7. Ashenfelter, Orley & Oaxaca, Ronald, 1987. "The Economics of Discrimination: Economists Enter the Courtroom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 321-325, May.
    8. Christopher Cornwell & David B. Mustard & Jessica Van Parys, 2013. "Noncognitive Skills and the Gender Disparities in Test Scores and Teacher Assessments: Evidence from Primary School," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(1), pages 236-264.
    9. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    10. Favara, Marta, 2012. "The Cost of Acting "Girly": Gender Stereotypes and Educational Choices," IZA Discussion Papers 7037, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. J. Aislinn Bohren & Alex Imas & Michael Rosenberg, 2019. "The Dynamics of Discrimination: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(10), pages 3395-3436, October.
    12. Falk, A. & Becker, A. & Dohmen, T.J. & Enke, B. & Huffman, D. & Sunde, U., 2015. "The nature and predictive power of preferences: Global evidence," Research Memorandum 039, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    13. Sophie Clot & Gilles Grolleau & Lisette Ibanez, 2016. "Do good deeds make bad people?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 491-513, December.
    14. Michael Ewens & Bryan Tomlin & Liang Choon Wang, 2014. "Statistical Discrimination or Prejudice? A Large Sample Field Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 119-134, March.
    15. Sule Alan & Seda Ertac & Ipek Mumcu, 2018. "Gender Stereotypes in the Classroom and Effects on Achievement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(5), pages 876-890, December.
    16. Sule Alan & Seda Ertac & Elif Kubilay & Gyongyi Loranth, 2020. "Understanding Gender Differences in Leadership," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(626), pages 263-289.
    17. Marianne Bertrand & Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2010. "Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 228-255, July.
    18. George A. Akerlof, 1980. "A Theory of Social Custom, of which Unemployment may be One Consequence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(4), pages 749-775.
    19. Orley Ashenfelter & Ronald Oaxaca, 1987. "The Economics of Discrimination Thirty Years Later: Economists Enter the Courtroom," Working Papers 596, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    20. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    21. Michael J. Carter, 2014. "Gender Socialization and Identity Theory," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-22, May.
    22. Sule Alan & Teodora Boneva & Seda Ertac, 2019. "Ever Failed, Try Again, Succeed Better: Results from a Randomized Educational Intervention on Grit," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1121-1162.
    23. Michela Carlana, 2019. "Implicit Stereotypes: Evidence from Teachers’ Gender Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1163-1224.
    24. Leandro S. Carvalho & Stephan Meier & Stephanie W. Wang, 2016. "Poverty and Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from Changes in Financial Resources at Payday," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 260-284, February.
    25. Thomas S. Dee, 2005. "A Teacher Like Me: Does Race, Ethnicity, or Gender Matter?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 158-165, May.
    26. Manuel F. Bagues & Berta Esteve-Volart, 2010. "Can Gender Parity Break the Glass Ceiling? Evidence from a Repeated Randomized Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1301-1328.
    27. Mukesh Eswaran, 2014. "Why Gender Matters in Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10362.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mallory Avery & Andreas Leibbrandt & Joseph Vecci, 2023. "Does Artificial Intelligence Help or Hurt Gender Diversity? Evidence from Two Field Experiments on Recruitment in Tech," Monash Economics Working Papers 2023-09, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    2. Sevilla, Almudena, 2020. "Gender Economics: An Assessment," IZA Discussion Papers 13877, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Lundberg, Shelly, 2022. "Gender Economics: Dead-Ends and New Opportunities," IZA Discussion Papers 15217, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Harris, Richard & Maté-Sánchez-Val, Mariluz, 2022. "Gender pay and productivity in UK universities: Evidence from research-intensive Business Schools," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    5. Francesca Gioia & Giovanni Immordino, 2023. "Gender-science Implicit Association and Employment Decisions," CSEF Working Papers 681, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    6. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Sarah Jewell & Carl Singleton, 2023. "Can Awareness Reduce (and Reverse) Identity-driven Bias in Judgement? Evidence from International Cricket," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-10, Department of Economics, University of Reading.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michela Carlana, 2019. "Implicit Stereotypes: Evidence from Teachers’ Gender Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1163-1224.
    2. Bosworth, Steven J. & Clot, Sophie & Della Giusta, Marina, 2019. "DIY or Ask Someone Nice?," IZA Discussion Papers 12406, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Sophie Clot & Marina Della Giusta & Amalia Di Girolamo, 2018. "Keep Calm and Carry on: Gender Differences in Endurance," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2018-03, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    4. J. Michelle Brock & Ralph De Haas, 2023. "Discriminatory Lending: Evidence from Bankers in the Lab," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 31-68, April.
    5. Kerstin Grosch & Simone Haeckl & Martin G. Kocher, 2022. "Closing the Gender STEM Gap - A Large-Scale Randomized-Controlled Trial in Elementary Schools," CESifo Working Paper Series 9907, CESifo.
    6. Grosch, Kerstin & Häckl, Simone & Kocher, Martin G., 2022. "Closing the gender STEM gap," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 329, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    7. Eren, Ozkan, 2023. "Potential in-group bias at work: Evidence from performance evaluations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 296-312.
    8. Delfino, Alexia, 2021. "Breaking Gender Barriers: Experimental Evidence on Men in Pink-Collar Jobs," IZA Discussion Papers 14083, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Sevilla, Almudena, 2020. "Gender Economics: An Assessment," IZA Discussion Papers 13877, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Dustan, Andrew & Koutout, Kristine & Leo, Greg, 2022. "Second-order beliefs and gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 752-781.
    11. Shulamit Kahn & Donna Ginther, 2017. "Women and STEM," NBER Working Papers 23525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Barron, Kai & Ditlmann, Ruth & Gehrig, Stefan & Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Sebastian, 2020. "Explicit and implicit belief-based gender discrimination: A hiring experiment," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2020-306, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    13. Borra, Cristina & Iacovou, Maria & Sevilla, Almudena, 2023. "Adolescent development and the math gender gap," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. Rakshit, Sonali & Sahoo, Soham, 2023. "Biased teachers and gender gap in learning outcomes: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    15. Terrier, Camille, 2020. "Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    16. Sule Alan & Enes Duysak & Elif Kubilay & Ipek Mumcu, 2023. "Social Exclusion and Ethnic Segregation in Schools: The Role of Teachers' Ethnic Prejudice," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1039-1054, September.
    17. Hussey, Andrew, 2011. "The effect of ethics on labor market success: Evidence from MBAs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 168-180.
    18. Delaney, Judith M. & Devereux, Paul J., 2021. "Gender and Educational Achievement: Stylized Facts and Causal Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 14074, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Eble, Alex & Hu, Feng, 2020. "Child beliefs, societal beliefs, and teacher-student identity match," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    20. Michèle Müller-Itten & Aniko Öry, 2022. "Mentoring and the Dynamics of Affirmative Action," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 402-444, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    discrimination; gender; unconscoius bias; licensing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13983. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.