Behind the Gender Gap: Labor Market Inequality and Differences in Economic Perceptions

Abstract

What explains women’s economic attitudes? In this paper, I argue that economic attitudes held by female citizens are significantly shaped by their perception of gender-based inequality in the labor market. However, this is not the case for men. Therefore, this paper suggests that women incorporate perceptions of labor inequality in their decision-making, and this helps explain the gender gap in economic attitudes. I test this hypothesis crossnationally by running an ordered logit model for survey data from Pew Global Research for Argentina, Brazil, Japan, and the United States in 2010. I operationalize economic perceptions based on two different variables: attitudes towards the state of the national economy, and opinions on trade openness. The results support the argument that women incorporate labor inequality, negatively related to their perception of the national economy.