Gender differences in networking

Gender differences in networking have been cited as an important reason behind gender earnings and promotion gaps. Despite this fact there is comparatively little evidence on whether such differences exist or what they look like. We conduct a series of experiments to gain insight into these questions. The experiments are designed to understand differences in the strategic use of networks, when both men and women have the same opportunities to network. While we do find evidence of gender earnings and promotion gaps in the lab, we do not find evidence of gender differences in network formation, except for the fact that men display more homophily than women. Women and men do, however, not systematically differ in terms of the number of links formed or received nor in terms of their centrality in the network. Earnings and promotion gaps appear partly because male decision makers are more likely to reward their (predominantly male) network neighbours with increased earnings as well as promotion.