The Gender Minority Gaps in Confidence and Self-Evaluations

By: Billur Aksoy, Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:31

Abstract

An increasing share of the population identifies as something other than male or female. Yet, we know very little about the economic preferences and beliefs of gender minorities. In this paper, we document a “gender minority gap” in confidence and in self-evaluations. Middle and high school students complete a math and science test. Relative to equally performing male and female peers, gender diverse students believe they scored lower and provide more pessimistic subjective self-evaluations of their performance, even after they learn their score. These findings may help to improve our understanding of the socioeconomic disparities that gender minorities experience.