822: The “Hidden” Gender Gap in Self-Promotion (12329)

Advertising one’s credentials is crucial for career outcomes in organizational settings where individual performance is not easily observable. Consequently, if women engage in self-advocacy less often or advocate for themselves less fervently, it may exacerbate gender gaps in labor market outcomes. Across a series of pre-registered experiments involving 14,092 participants, including 8,546 adults and 5,546 adolescents, we investigate gender differences in whether and how men and women promote their credentials. We observe a consistent pattern across both adults and adolescents: women not only exhibit lower rates of self-promotion but, even when prompted to do so, convey lower self-ratings compared to their male counterparts. Importantly, this intensive margin gender gap persists even among those individuals who choose to self-promote on the extensive margin. In additional study waves employing various information treatments to address these gaps, we find that no treatment impacts both extensive and intensive margin gaps simultaneously, suggesting that these gaps are driven by different mechanisms. These gender gaps have important implications for economic outcomes, as self-promotion improves hiring outcomes for both men and women in our study context. Our findings highlight the importance of considering both extensive and intensive margin measures when documenting gender gaps and designing interventions.

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