Idola Francesca Spanò (University of Calabria)
Vincenzo Scoppa
Gender gaps in labor market outcomes have been typically attributed to individual characteristics, discrimination, and horizontal or vertical segregation. More recently, many studies have documented the role of gender differences in psychological attitudes. Using data on individual reservation wages the minimum wage a worker is willing to accept for a sample of Italian graduates, this study offers new evidence along these lines. We investigate gender differences in reservation wages based on individual characteristics, differences in the expected wage and in the expected probability of finding a job and differences in demand for job-attributes (such as part-time, flexibility, or location). We apply the Gelbachs decomposition to quantify the contribution of each group of factors in explaining the gender gap. Our findings reveal a large unexplained component, which is likely due to gender differences in psychological attitudes, such as overconfidence and the propensity to ask.