Gender Differences in Judicial Decisions under Incomplete Information: Evidence from Child Support Cases

We compare decisions by female and male judges in child support trials where a judge decides on the child support amount to be paid by the father. Leveraging the random assignment of cases to judges, we show that female judges set lower child support awards. We find no evidence that this gap is explained by pervasive views on traditional gender norms, nor by female and male judges pursuing alternative judicial goals. Instead, we offer a new perspective on gender differences in judicial decision-making by focusing on cases where the defendant’s income is non-observable due to labor market informality. In these cases, judges must form beliefs about the income before deciding on a child support award. Eliciting such beliefs, we find that female judges rely less on the plaintiff’s claim to form beliefs about the defendant’s income, which explains the gender gap in child support awards.