Overworked and underpaid: on the nature of gender differences in personal entitlement.

This research investigated gender differences in feelings of personal entitlement with respect to monetary payment for work performed. Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that women's internal standards of fair pay for their work are lower than men's and to examine possible causes of this difference. In Experiment 1, men and women were asked to pay themselves in a private situation what they thought was fair pay for a fixed amount of work. Social comparison information was varied. As predicted, women paid themselves less money than men in the absence, but not the presence, of social comparison information. In Experiment 2, men and women were asked to do as much work as they thought was fair for a fixed, prepaid, amount of money. Subjects believed that their work was either monitored or unmonitored. Women worked significantly longer, did more work, and did more correct work than men in both public and private work settings. Furthermore, women, but not men, worked longer when they believed their work was monitored than when they believed it was unmonitored. Possible explanations for these gender differences are discussed.