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  • Forthcoming
  • Article
  • Quarterly Journal of Economics

The Gender Gap in Self-Promotion

By: Christine L Exley and Judd B. Kessler
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

In applications, interviews, performance reviews, and many other environments, individuals are explicitly asked or implicitly invited to assess their own performance. In a series of experiments, we find that women rate their performance less favorably than equally performing men. This gender gap in self-promotion is notably persistent. It stays just as strong when we: eliminate gender differences in confidence about performance, eliminate incentives to self-promote, provide information about the average self-promotion of others, and make environments more ambiguous. Because of the prevalence of self-promotion opportunities, this self-promotion gap may contribute to persistent gender gaps in education and labor market outcomes.

Keywords

Self-promotion; Gender Gap; Experiments; Performance Evaluation; Gender

Citation

Exley, Christine L., and Judd B. Kessler. "The Gender Gap in Self-Promotion." Quarterly Journal of Economics (forthcoming).
  • Find it at Harvard

About The Author

Christine L. Exley

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • January 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Negotiating for Equal Pay: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (A) and (B)

    By: John Beshears and Christine Exley
    • June 2021
    • Management Science

    The Role of Beliefs in Driving Gender Discrimination

    By: Katherine B. Coffman, Christine L. Exley and Muriel Niederle
    • 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Information Avoidance and Image Concerns

    By: Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler
More from the Authors
  • Negotiating for Equal Pay: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (A) and (B) By: John Beshears and Christine Exley
  • The Role of Beliefs in Driving Gender Discrimination By: Katherine B. Coffman, Christine L. Exley and Muriel Niederle
  • Information Avoidance and Image Concerns By: Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler
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