Career lesbians. Getting hired for not having kids?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12078
• Author: Stijn Baert
• Date: 01 November 2014
• Published date: 01 November 2014

Career lesbians. Getting hired for not

having kids?

Stijn Baert

ABSTRACT

Using a field experiment, we investigate whether discrimination based on women’s

sexual orientation differs by age and family constraints. We find weakly significant

evidence of discrimination against young heterosexual women. This effect is driven by

age (and fertility) rather than by motherhood. We do not find any unequal treatment

at older ages. This age effect is consistent with our theoretical expectation that,

relative to lesbian women, young heterosexual women are penalised for getting chil-

dren more frequently and taking on, on average, more at-home-caring tasks.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the last decade, several economic studies tested discrimination based on women’s

sexual orientation. Using comprehensive field experiments, Drydakis (2011; Forth-

coming), Weichselbaumer (2003; 2013), Ahmed et al. (2013) and Patacchini et al.

(2012) identified high levels of discrimination against lesbians in Greece and Cyprus,

moderate levels in Austria and Germany, low levels in Sweden and no unequal

treatment at all in Italy. This evidence of discrimination is worrisome. Not only is

discrimination unacceptable from an ethical perspective, but it also has important

economic consequences (Drydakis, 2011).

As argued by Neumark (1999), it is important from a policy perspective to deter-

mine the nature of discrimination in order to design adequate policy actions. In the

context of discrimination based on sexual orientation, several mechanisms have been

proposed in the theoretical literature. These mechanisms can be grouped under the

well-known models of taste discrimination (Becker, 1957) and statistical discrimina-

tion (Arrow, 1973). Both of these theories are based on neoclassical economic

assumptions and have been criticised in different aspects (see, e.g. Bergmann, 1989 in

the context of gender-based discrimination in the labour market). However, in spite of

the development of alternative approaches to theorising hiring discrimination such

as the models of implicit discrimination (see, e.g. Altonji and Blank, 1999), noncom-

peting groups (see, e.g. Darity and Mason, 1998), labour market segmentation (see,

e.g. Reich et al., 1973) and lexicographic search by employers (see, e.g. Bertrand and

Mullainathan, 2004), many recent contributions to the discrimination literature are

still motivated and guided by the theoretical framework of the models of taste and

❒Stijn Baert is Post Doctoral Researcher in Ghent University. Correspondence should be addressed to

Stijn Baert, Ghent University, Tweekerkenstraat 2, B–9000 Ghent, Belgium; email: Stijn.Baert@UGent.be

Industrial Relations Journal 45:6, 543–561

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

statistical discrimination (Borjas, 2009; Charles and Guryan, 2008; Drydakis,

Forthcoming). Moreover, while some newer models are particularly applicable to the

case of ethnic discrimination, the models of Becker (1957) and Arrow (1973) can be

applied to the case of sexual orientation discrimination in a natural way leading to

clear-cut—albeit conflicting—research hypotheses.

On the one hand, there are valid theoretical arguments for taste-based discrimina-

tion against lesbian workers. Taste discrimination blinds the employer to the true

monetary costs associated with hiring a minority worker. An employer who discrimi-

nates will, following this model, act as if the costs of hiring a minority worker exceed

the actual costs. Becker’s (1957) ‘discrimination coefficient’ gives the percentage

markup in the costs of hiring a minority worker attributable to the employer’s

prejudice. This framework is also applicable to other types of economic interactions.

Prejudiced workers (customers) may act as if their wage (the price of the good they

want to sell) is a fraction equal to their discrimination coefficient lower (higher) if they

have to interact with a minority worker. Regardless of whether the source of the

prejudice is the employer (‘employer discrimination’), the employee (‘employee dis-

crimination’) or the customer (‘customer discrimination’), discrimination will

decrease hiring chances for the minority worker, at least in sectors dominated by

majority workers (Borjas, 2009; Drydakis, Forthcoming).

Analogous to the general case, taste discrimination against lesbians could be caused

by the general distaste that employers, employees and customers may have for sexual

minorities and the experienced disutility of interacting with them. As a consequence,

employers may be prepared to hire heterosexual candidates even if they are of lower

productivity or have higher reservation wages.

On the other hand, there are also reasons to expect statistical discrimination in

favour of lesbian workers. Statistical discrimination occurs when, as a time-efficient

and profit-maximising response to low information and uncertainty about the actual

productivity of individual job candidates, employers take into account their views

about the relative productivity-related characteristics of different groups (based on

information that might be imperfect) to predict a particular applicant’s productivity.

Several factors may lead employers to expect higher average productivity from

lesbians relative to straight women. First, lesbians are documented as being, on

average, more ‘masculine’, that is, more dominant, autonomous and assertive. This

characteristic may match well with some specific jobs and may adhere to the ideal of

masculinity that is associated with labour market success (Berg and Lien, 2002;

Blandford, 2003; Clain and Leppel, 2001).1Second, lesbians are documented as

having on average, a more committed and continuous labour market participation.

This characteristic results from two different factors. On the one hand, on average,

lesbians have children less frequently than heterosexual women and, due to a less

traditional division of labour within the household, lesbians, on average, engage in

less rearing tasks, which are conditional on having children in the first place, than

heterosexual women do. On the other hand, this less traditional division of labour

also results in the reduction of other household responsibilities. Due to these charac-

teristics, lesbians may be more productive and accumulate more human capital as the

return on market-oriented human capital investments will be higher among them

(Ahmed et al., 2011; Antecol and Steinberger, 2011; Drydakis, 2011; Elmslie and

1Mention that behaving in more manly ways may at the same time underlie taste discrimination.

544 Stijn Baert

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd