The Gender Gap in Performance Reviews

Lisa Abraham

ResearchPosted on rand.org Oct 16, 2023Published in: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 214, pages 459-492 (October 2023). doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.07.039

Performance reviews are correlated with compensation, promotion, and career decisions in the labor market. Using data from Reflektive, formerly an employee performance management company, I examine gender differences in over 100,000 performance reviews for 170 companies across 12 different industries. I find that women rate their performance lower than men, and these differences persist when accounting for external manager and peer reviews of the worker's performance. The gender gap in how women versus men rate themselves as compared to their managers persists across different types of industries, firms, reviewers, and workers, highlighting the generalizability of the results. These findings may have implications for self-promotion in other high-stakes labor market settings.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: Elsevier B.V
  • Publisher: ScienceDirect
  • Availability: Non-RAND
  • Year: 2023
  • Pages: 34
  • Document Number: EP-70264

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