IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v59y2024i2p470-501.html

Do Workers Discriminate against Female Bosses?

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Abel

Abstract

I hire 2,700 workers for a transcription job, randomly assigning the gender of their (fictitious) manager and provision of performance feedback. While praise has no effect, criticism negatively impacts workers’ job satisfaction and perception of the task’s importance. When female managers deliver this feedback, negative effects on these attitudes double in magnitude. Having a critical female manager does not affect effort provision, but it lowers workers’ interest in working for the firm in the future. Results are consistent with gendered expectations of feedback. I find no evidence for the role of attention discrimination or implicit gender bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Abel, 2024. "Do Workers Discriminate against Female Bosses?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 59(2), pages 470-501.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:59:y:2024:i:2:p:470-501
    Note: DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.1120-11318R3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jhr.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/59/2/470
    Download Restriction: A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    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. Asad, Sher Afghan & Banerjee, Ritwik & Bhattacharya, Joydeep, 2020. "Do workers discriminate against their out-group employers? Evidence from the gig economy," ISU General Staff Papers 202002230800001098, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Abel, Martin & Robbett, Andrea & Stone, Daniel F., 2024. "Partisan Discrimination in Hiring," IZA Discussion Papers 17540, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Arora, Puneet & Roy, Moumita, 2025. "Are students really biased against female professors? — Experimental evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    4. Martin Abel & Daniel Buchman, 2024. "The Effect of Manager Gender and Performance Feedback: Experimental Evidence from India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(1), pages 307-338.
    5. Woodruff, Christopher & Macchiavello, Rocco & Menzel, Andreas & Rabbani, Atonu, 2020. "Challenges of Change: An Experiment Promoting Women to Managerial Roles in the Bangladeshi Garment Sector," CEPR Discussion Papers 15085, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Shanthi Manian & Ketki Sheth, 2021. "Follow My Lead: Assertive Cheap Talk and the Gender Gap," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6880-6896, November.
    7. Seoyeon Chang & Sonoko Ishikawa & Naoki Miyamoto & Ryo Takahashi, 2025. "Misperception or Discrimination? Gender Bias in Health Communication on Anemia Prevention," Working Papers 2501, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    8. Priyanka Chakraborty & Danila Serra, 2021. "Gender and leadership in organizations: Promotions, demotions and angry workers," Working Papers 20210104-001, Texas A&M University, Department of Economics.
    9. Michael Rivera & Liangfei Qiu & Subodha Kumar & Tony Petrucci, 2021. "Are Traditional Performance Reviews Outdated? An Empirical Analysis on Continuous, Real-Time Feedback in the Workplace," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 517-540, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General

    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:uwp:jhriss:v:59:y:2024:i:2:p:470-501. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://jhr.uwpress.org/ .

    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.