IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v16y2024i2p182-219.html

The Gender Application Gap: Do Men and Women Apply for the Same Jobs?

Author

Listed:
  • Jonas Fluchtmann
  • Anita M. Glenny
  • Nikolaj A. Harmon
  • Jonas Maibom

Abstract

Men and women tend to hold different jobs. Are these differences present already in the types of jobs men and women apply for? Using administrative data on job applications made by the universe of Danish unemployment insurance recipients, we provide evidence on gender differences in applied-for jobs for the broader labor market. Across a range of job characteristics, we find large gender gaps in the share of applications going to different job types even among observationally similar men and women. In a standard decomposition, gender differences in applications can explain more than 70 percent of the residual gender wage gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonas Fluchtmann & Anita M. Glenny & Nikolaj A. Harmon & Jonas Maibom, 2024. "The Gender Application Gap: Do Men and Women Apply for the Same Jobs?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 182-219, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:182-219
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20210607
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20210607
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E192369V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20210607.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20210607.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20210607?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Patricia Palffy & Patrick Lehnert & Uschi Backes‐Gellner, 2023. "Social norms and gendered occupational choices of men and women: Time to turn the tide?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 380-410, October.
    2. Benjamin Lochner & Christian Merkl, 2026. "Gender-Specific Application Behaviour, Matching, and the Residual Gender Earnings Gap," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 136(673), pages 97-124.
    3. Escudero, Verónica & Liepmann, Hannah & Vergara, Damian, 2024. "Directed Search, Wages, and Non-wage Amenities: Evidence from an Online Job Board," IZA Discussion Papers 17211, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Teutloff, Ole & Stenzhorn, Eliza & Kässi, Otto, 2025. "Skills, job application strategies, and the gender wage gap: Evidence from online freelancing," ZEW Discussion Papers 25-016, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Francesca Barigozzi & Natalia Montinari & Elisa Orlandi, 2025. "Gendered decision making in explore-exploit tasks," Working Papers wp1211, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    6. Paula Scholz, 2025. "It's Not About the Money – Or Is It? Stereotypes and the Gender Application Gap," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 359, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    7. Richard Audoly & Manudeep Bhuller & Tore Adam Reiremo, 2024. "The Pay and Non-Pay Content of Job Ads," Staff Reports 1124, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Chaturvedi, Sugat & Mahajan, Kanika & Siddique, Zahra, 2025. "Gendered language in job ads and applicant behavior: Evidence from India," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    9. Bamieh, Omar & Ziegler, Lennart, 2023. "Gender-age differences in hiring rates and prospective wages—Evidence from job referrals to unemployed workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    10. Jason Faberman & Andreas I. Mueller & Ayşegül Şahin, 2026. "Job Search, Job Amenities and the Gender Pay Gap," NBER Working Papers 34877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Tomás R. Martinez & Antonio Martins-Neto & Ursula Mello, 2024. "Gender and Top Lifetime Earnings Inequality: Ten New Facts from Brazil," Business and Economics Working Papers 242, Unidade de Negocios e Economia, Insper.
    12. Stephen Bazen & Kadija Charni, 2026. "Gender differences in the early career earnings of economics graduates," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 247-266, March.
    13. Sarthak Joshi, 2025. "Spatial Shocks and Gender Employment Gaps," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 323, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    14. Khaliliaraghi, Negar & Lundborg, Petter & Vikström, johan, 2026. "Gender Gaps Under Comparable Tasks: Evidence from Quasi-Random Assignment," Working Paper Series 2026:7, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    15. Scoppa, Vincenzo & Spanò, Idola Francesca, 2025. "Do Women Ask for Less? Evidence from Reservation Wages in Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 18230, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Olympia Bover & Laura Hospido & Ana Lamo, 2025. "Gender and career progression: evidence from the Banco de España," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 569-603, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    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:aea:aejpol:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:182-219. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.