IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0229383.html

The persistence of pay inequality: The gender pay gap in an anonymous online labor market

Author

Listed:
  • Leib Litman
  • Jonathan Robinson
  • Zohn Rosen
  • Cheskie Rosenzweig
  • Joshua Waxman
  • Lisa M Bates

Abstract

Studies of the gender pay gap are seldom able to simultaneously account for the range of alternative putative mechanisms underlying it. Using CloudResearch, an online microtask platform connecting employers to workers who perform research-related tasks, we examine whether gender pay discrepancies are still evident in a labor market characterized by anonymity, relatively homogeneous work, and flexibility. For 22,271 Mechanical Turk workers who participated in nearly 5 million tasks, we analyze hourly earnings by gender, controlling for key covariates which have been shown previously to lead to differential pay for men and women. On average, women’s hourly earnings were 10.5% lower than men’s. Several factors contributed to the gender pay gap, including the tendency for women to select tasks that have a lower advertised hourly pay. This study provides evidence that gender pay gaps can arise despite the absence of overt discrimination, labor segregation, and inflexible work arrangements, even after experience, education, and other human capital factors are controlled for. Findings highlight the need to examine other possible causes of the gender pay gap. Potential strategies for reducing the pay gap on online labor markets are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Leib Litman & Jonathan Robinson & Zohn Rosen & Cheskie Rosenzweig & Joshua Waxman & Lisa M Bates, 2020. "The persistence of pay inequality: The gender pay gap in an anonymous online labor market," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-19, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0229383
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229383
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229383
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229383&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0229383?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Neumark & Roy J. Bank & Kyle D. Van Nort, 1996. "Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 915-941.
    2. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    3. Platt, Jonathan & Prins, Seth & Bates, Lisa & Keyes, Katherine, 2016. "Unequal depression for equal work? How the wage gap explains gendered disparities in mood disorders," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 1-8.
    4. Dawson, Chris, 2017. "The upside of pessimism − Biased beliefs and the paradox of the contented female worker," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 215-228.
    5. Siou Chew Kuek & Cecilia Paradi-Guilford & Toks Fayomi & Saori Imaizumi & Panos Ipeirotis & Patricia Pina & Manpreet Singh, 2015. "The Global Opportunity in Online Outsourcing," World Bank Publications - Reports 22284, The World Bank Group.
    6. Caliendo, Marco & Lee, Wang-Sheng & Mahlstedt, Robert, 2017. "The gender wage gap and the role of reservation wages: New evidence for unemployed workers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 161-173.
    7. Cody Cook & Rebecca Diamond & Jonathan V Hall & John A List & Paul Oyer, 2021. "The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers [Measuring the Gig Economy: Current Knowledge and Open Issues]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(5), pages 2210-2238.
    8. Brown, Sarah & Roberts, Jennifer & Taylor, Karl, 2011. "The gender reservation wage gap: Evidence from British Panel data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 88-91, October.
    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. Jiachen Han & Mingming Li & Shi Li & Yingying Hu, 2024. "The widening gender wage gap in the gig economy in China: the impact of digitalisation," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Ramy Zeid & Dana Alrayess & Mohamed Ihsan Ajwad & Mehmet Ali Soytas & Nayib Rivera, 2024. "The Gig Economy and the Future of Work," World Bank Publications - Reports 41755, The World Bank Group.
    3. Lars Hornuf & Daniel Vrankar, 2022. "Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(5), pages 553-573, October.
    4. Tubaro, Paola & Coville, Marion & Le Ludec, Clément & Casilli, Antonio A., 2022. "Hidden inequalities: The gendered labour of women on micro-tasking platforms," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 11(1), pages 1-26.
    5. Marinko Skare & Beata Gavurova & Viliam Kovac, 2025. "Sustainability of gender employment and pay gap types regarding female participation in corporate management," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 27(9), pages 21593-21619, September.
    6. Chen, Yutong, 2024. "Does the gig economy discriminate against women? Evidence from physicians in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    7. Gomez-Herrera, Estrella & Mueller-Langer, Frank, 2024. "Does information disclosure affect the gender gap in bidding behavior? Empirical evidence from a natural experiment on a large online labor platform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    8. Fröberg, Emelie & Säve-Söderbergh, Jenny & Wahlund, Richard & Wiley Wakeman, S., 2023. "The promise (and peril) in approaching gender parity: Preregistered survey experiments addressing gender inequality in negotiations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Zeid, Ramy & Alrayess, Dana Jasmine & Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan & Soytas, Mehmet Ali & Rivera, Nayib, 2024. "The Gig Economy and the Future of Work : Global Trends and Policy Directions for Non-Standard Forms of Employment," The Social Policy and Labor Discussion Paper Series 190908, The World Bank.
    10. Lubna Rashid & Clemens Möckel & Stephan Bohn, 2024. "The blessing and curse of “no strings attached”: An automated literature analysis of psychological health and non-attachmental work in the digitalization era," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(2), pages 1-32, February.
    11. Haeckl, Simone & Kartal, Melis, 2021. "Does a stereotype benefit women in the labor market: An experiment on perseverance," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2021/5, University of Stavanger.

    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. Estrella Gomez-Herrera & Frank Müller-Langer, 2019. "Is There a Gender Wage Gap in Online Labor Markets? Evidence from Over 250,000 Projects and 2.5 Million Wage Bill Proposals," CESifo Working Paper Series 7779, CESifo.
    2. Thomas Le Barbanchon & Roland Rathelot & Alexandra Roulet, 2025. "Gender Differences in Job Search: Trading off Commute against Wage," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(1), pages 381-426.
    3. Oliver Gürtler & Lennart Struth, 2025. "Do Workers Benefit From Wage Transparency Rules?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 66(3), pages 1099-1128, August.
    4. Bonaccolto-Töpfer, Marina & Satlukal, Sascha, 2024. "Gender differences in reservation wages: New evidence for Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    5. David Dorn & Florian Schoner & Moritz Seebacher & Lisa Simon & Ludger Woessmann, 2024. "Multidimensional Skills on LinkedIn Profiles: Measuring Human Capital and the Gender Skill Gap," Papers 2409.18638, arXiv.org, revised May 2025.
    6. Kai Barron & Ruth Ditlmann & Stefan Gehrig & Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch, 2025. "Explicit and Implicit Belief-Based Gender Discrimination: A Hiring Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(2), pages 1600-1622, February.
    7. Rapoport, Elena & Volkova, Natalia V. & Barajas, Angel, 2026. "Women and men in tech: Invisible barriers, gendered self-perception, and the social reshaping of work," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Carlsson, Magnus & Eriksson, Stefan, 2019. "Age discrimination in hiring decisions: Evidence from a field experiment in the labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 173-183.
    9. Kesternich, Iris & Schumacher, Heiner & Siflinger, Bettina & Valder, Franziska, 2022. "Reservation wages and labor supply," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 583-607.
    10. Spencer Bastani & Thomas Giebe & Oliver Gürtler, 2023. "Overconfidence and Gender Equality in the Labor Market," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 220, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    11. Claudia Roethlisberger & Franziska Gassmann & Wim Groot & Bruno Martorano, 2023. "The contribution of personality traits and social norms to the gender pay gap: A systematic literature review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 377-408, April.
    12. Contensou, François & Vranceanu, Radu, 2019. "Working time and wage rate differences : a contract theory approach," ESSEC Working Papers WP1913, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School, revised 06 Mar 2021.
    13. Taiyo Fukai & Keisuke Kawata & Mizuki Komura & Takahiro Toriyabe, 2025. "Gender gap in the desired wages: Evidence from large administrative data," Papers 2511.03252, arXiv.org.
    14. Kiessling, Lukas & Pinger, Pia & Seegers, Philipp & Bergerhoff, Jan, 2024. "Gender differences in wage expectations and negotiation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    15. Michael Neugart & Anna Zaharieva, 2025. "Social networks, promotions, and the glass‐ceiling effect," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 370-402, May.
    16. Christian Pfeifer & Gesine Stephan, 2019. "Why women do not ask: gender differences in fairness perceptions of own wages and subsequent wage growth," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 43(2), pages 295-310.
    17. 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.
    18. Mladen Adamovic & Andreas Leibbrandt, 2023. "A large‐scale field experiment on occupational gender segregation and hiring discrimination," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 34-59, January.
    19. Nickolas Gagnon & Kristof Bosmans & Arno Riedl, 2020. "The Effect of Unfair Chances and Gender Discrimination on Labor Supply," CESifo Working Paper Series 8058, CESifo.
    20. Monica Fisher & Paul A. Lewin & Ryanne Pilgeram, 2023. "Gender differences in the financial performance of U.S. farm businesses: A decomposition analysis using the Census of Agriculture," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 1233-1253, June.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0229383. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.