Are Women Competitive Enough to Get Good Salaries?
The results of a math tournament say they are.
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The gender pay gap is a little bit like climate change: We may never stop arguing about whether, and why, it exists. The latest contribution to the debate comes from three professors who argue in a new paper that women earn less than men because they are less competitive.
Women who graduated from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business start out earning $26,000 less than men; over time they choose to work in low-paying industries, says the study (PDF), published this month at the National Bureau of Economic Research by professors at Columbia University, Northwestern University, and Chicago. What makes woman opt out of lucrative industries? They don’t want to compete with people in a math game.