Essays on gender : impostor feelings, team composition, and pay gaps

Abstract

Since the second wave of feminism started in the 1960s, women have made progress in the labour force. However, persistent challenges such as low representation in specific fields, limited access to high-ranking positions, and the gender pay gap continue to hinder gender equality. Overcoming these inequalities is crucial for empowering women and challenging societal norms. In this dissertation, we use different methods to investigate how the illusion of feeling incompetent, gender biases around working in teams with women, and the gender wage gap contribute to the challenges faced by women. Firstly, we use anchoring vignettes in a survey to examine whether impostor feelings, characterised by individuals mistakenly perceiving themselves as incompetent despite external evidence of success, discourage women from pursuing fields where they are traditionally underrepresented, such as academia. We observe a negative relationship between impostor feelings and the likelihood of students pursuing further studies. This limits human capital accumulation which can perpetuate gender disparities in the labour market. Secondly, we use a university-based field experiment to explore whether gender perceptions influence team relations and performance. We note a lower willingness to work in randomly assigned teams that have more women, despite majority-female teams outperforming other team types. Since individuals that are less included in their team have fewer opportunities to build upon their human capital, bias against having more women in a team can limit women’s career progression. Lastly, we look at the broader effects of gender inequality, specifically the gender pay gap. Using administrative data pertaining to South Africa’s formal economy, we find that the income differential by gender widened from 2008 to 2021. This lower pay negatively impacts women’s economic autonomy. Also, we note that the gender pay gap is largest at the 90th percentile of the income distribution in high-skill sectors suggesting women earn less than men at top-level management positions. These findings together highlight that women still struggle with gender equality in the labour market.