Whether to Apply

Abstract

Labor market outcomes depend, in part, upon an individual’s willingness to put him- or herself forward for different opportunities. We use a series of experiments to explore gender differences in willingness to apply for higher-return, more challenging work. We find that, in male-typed domains, qualified women are significantly less likely to apply than similarly well-qualified men. We provide evidence both in a controlled setting and in the field that reducing ambiguity surrounding required qualifications increases the rate at which qualified women apply. The effects are mixed for men. Our results point to a way to increase the pool of qualified women applicants. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: This work was funded by the National Science Foundation [Grant 1713752] and Harvard Business School. Supplemental Material: The e-companion and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4907 .

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