On average, women earn less than men. This is evident in countries with the largest economies of the world. The purpose of this research is to discover whether a woman’s name rather than that of a man contributes to this difference. In an experiment involving 281 employees from several companies, participants were asked to pretend that they were human resource managers. They were required to offer a salary to a female or male applicant for a sales representative or manager’s job, and to also suggest a salary for a niece or nephew for similar jobs. Participants received identical curriculum vitae (CV) for each job, but half who were randomly selected received a female name on the CV and the other half a male name. On five measures for both jobs, all female applicants and nieces “received” lower salaries than male applicants and nephews, irrespective of their gender, age, or position.

 

Key words: Gender, wage gap, salaries, experiment, differences.