Stephen versus Stephanie? Does gender matter for peer-to-peer career advice

Abstract

Occupational segregation is one of the major causes of the gender pay gap. We probe the possibility that individual beliefs regarding gender stereotypes established in childhood contribute to gendered sorting. We consider whether UK students aged 15–16 years recommend that a fictitious peer pursue different college majors and career paths simply because of the peer’s gender. We find strong evidence that this is the case. The within-majors treatment design shows that our respondents are 11 percentage points more likely to recommend corporate law to a male peer. The across-majors design reveals that students presented with a male fictitious peer tend to recommend degrees that have lower shares of females to males.