Gender Differences: Origins and Consequences 

PhD course , 2018, 2020

Below is an overview of my research:

1. Gender and negotiation behavior

• “Do Women Ask for Less and Give-in More than Men do in a Negotiation? A Lab-based Study of Gender Gaps in Asking and Accommodating Behavior“: this is an on-going project aimed at testing gender gaps in accepting and accommodating behavior in a salary negotiation in the lab. Within this project we also test using a different design how beliefs about how others negotiate can affect gender gaps in bidding behavior. This is joint work with Christine Alamaa, SOFI.

• In an on-going broad research project on gender gaps in expected pay we study (i) how a simle information intervention can change the gender gap in expected pay, see“The Promise (and Peril) in Approaching Gender Parity: Preregistered Status Experiments that Impact Gender Inequality in Negotiation”, in Labour Economics August 2023, (ii) if and how changes in the gender pay gap of recent alumni leads to updated expected pay, and subsequently to changes in the actual pay using a rich combination of Swedish survey and tax-register data, see working paper “Changes in Gender Equality on the Labor Market: How Do Students Update Their Beliefs of Future
  Earnings in Response?”, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4458264). Both projects are joint work with Emelie Fröberg, Richard Wahlund and Wiley Wakeman at Stockholm School of Economics. Moreover, (iii) in joint work with Francesca Manzi (London School of Economics), Leib Litman (Touro University), and Zohn Rosen (Colombia University), we do research targeting finding the most effective information intervention that can reduce gender inequality in accepted pay among online gig-workers.
• In recent work we study why women ask for less in negotiations using a pre-registered analysis of survey data, in Labour Economics, 2022. This is joint work with Anna Dreber Almenberg, SSE, and Emma Heikensten, SEB.   

2. Pensions and gender  

• “To Transfer Or Not To Transfer: An Investigation of the Swedish Pension Transfer Program” is an on-going project in which we investigate how a Swedish reform on pensions transfers affected take up and later reduction of poverty using Swedish pension data.  This is joint work with Yevhenia Hrabovska, Stockholm School of Economics, Marieke Bos, Stockholm School of Economics, and Wenli Li, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
• “Kvinnors och mäns kunskap om pensioner och pensionssystemet - en redovisning av en enkätundersökning kombinerad med registerdata” is a project using new survey data investigating gender gaps in the knowledge about those parts of the pension system that specifically are aimed at ameliorating gender inequality, see ISF RAPPORT 2022:1. This is joint work with Stefanie König at ISF.
• “Who lacks pension knowledge, why and does it matter? Evidence from Swedish retirement savers” in Public Finance Review 2022 and IFAU Report 2020:23, use Swedish register data combined with a survey. This is joint work with Mikael Elinder, Uppsala university, Johannes Hagen, Jönköping University and Mattias Nordin, Uppsala university.

3. Labor market policy evaluation

• In a recent ISF report we present causal evidence of how coordinated (from four collaborators – regionen, kommunen, Arbetsförmedlingen och Försäkringskassan), as opposed to single-sided support from each collaborator, has a significant positive effect on future earnings and income using (i) a policy evaluation of effects from attaining coordinated support in Malmökraften using a randomized selection of participant into the program and (ii) a randomized controlled trial executed within different “Samordningsförbund” in Göteborg and Stockholm, see ISF RAPPORT 2023:2.

4. Financial Literacy and debt attitudes

This field of research covers work on the level of financial literacy in Sweden following up on “Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Sweden” (joint with Johan Almenberg) in Journal of Pension Economics and Finance (2011). Two more follow ups have been done on financial litercay in Sweden, see “Attitudes Toward Debt and Debt Behavior” (joint with Johan Almenberg, Annamaria Lusardi and Roine Vestman) in Scandinavian Journal of Economics (2022), from 2017, and “Who lacks pension knowledge, why and does it matter? Evidence from Swedish retirement savers” in Public Finance Review (2022) from 2019 (joint with Mikael Elinder, Johannes Hagen and Mattias Nordin).

5. Gender and risk-taking

This field covers previous work on gender gaps in risk-taking first exploiting risk-taking across generations and gender compositions in the game-show Jeopardy, see “Children do not behave like adults: Gender gaps in performance and risk taking within a random social context in the high-stakes game shows Jeopardy and Junior Jeopardy”, Economic Journal (2017). Secondly, I have explored risk taking in the Swedish pension reform for the premium pension, see “Self-directed Pensions: Gender, Risk and Portfolio Choices” in Scandinavian Journal of Economics (2012).

6. Policy-reports

This covers previous work on evaluating the causal effect of introducing simplified sick leave certificates, see ISF Report “Förenklade Läkarintyg och inflödet till sjukförsäkringen: En analys av effekterna på vårdenhetsnivå och regionnivå”. Moreover in "Makar som delar på kakan- En ESO rapport om jämställda pensioner" (2017), I present results on the level of partners’ choices of pension transfers aimed at equalizing gender gaps in pensions.

7. Other fields on decision-making and investments

This field covers research on e.g., investment behaviour in ethical funds, bounded rationality, taxation and risk-taking. 

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Why do women ask for less?

  2022. Anna Dreber, Emma Heikensten, Jenny Säve-Söderbergh. Labour Economics 78

  Article

  Women are often less likely to negotiate or ask for less when they do negotiate compared to men. In this study, we send out a survey to a large sample of recent college graduates in Sweden. We ask respondents whether they made an explicit salary request and what the outcome was. We include several questions on beliefs and attitudes towards negotiations. While women are more likely to state a salary request, we find that they on average ask for less than men. This gender gap is reduced when we control for beliefs and attitudes. However, neither perceived social costs nor confidence appear to matter for the gender gap. Instead, while men and women consider themselves relatively similar to an ideal candidate applying for the same job, they differ on average in their beliefs about what constitutes a reasonable request amount for the ideal candidate. This variable is the only statistically significant mediating variable of the gender gap in salary requests, and suggests that information interventions affecting beliefs could potentially reduce the gender gap in negotiations. As our results are correlational they should however be interpreted with caution.

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• Who Lacks Pension Knowledge, Why and Does it Matter? Evidence From Swedish Retirement Savers

  2022. Mikael Elinder (et al.). Public Finance Review 50 (4), 379-435

  Article

  Recent pension reforms have shifted a larger responsibility towards savers. Individuals therefore need better knowledge of the rules and incentives embedded in the pension system to adequately save and prepare for retirement. In this paper, we use a novel Swedish survey matched with high-quality administrative data to show that many lack, and feel that they lack, such pension-specific knowledge. We also show that the most economically vulnerable groups know the least. Linking pension knowledge to behavior, we find that knowing less is associated with lower preparedness for retirement, even after controlling for financial literacy and subjective knowledge. Moreover, a large majority state the complexity of the pension system, or that they have planned to learn more about pensions but that it just hasn’t happened, as reasons for why they do not have sufficient knowledge.

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• Attitudes towards Debt and Debt Behavior*

  2021. Johan Almenberg (et al.). Scandinavian Journal of Economics 123 (3), 780-809

  Article

  We introduce a novel survey measure of attitude towards debt. Matching our survey results with panel data on Swedish household balance sheets from registry data, we show that our measure of debt attitude helps to explain individual variation in indebtedness as well as debt build-up and spending behavior in the period 2004-2007. As an explanatory variable, debt attitude compares well with a number of other determinants of debt, including education, risk-taking, and financial literacy. We also provide evidence that suggests that debt attitude is passed down along family lines and has a cultural element.

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• Gender gaps in salary negotiations: Salary requests and starting salaries in the field

  2019. Jenny Säve-Söderbergh. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 161, 35-51

  Article

  This paper provides new evidence of gender gaps in negotiation behavior and in subsequent outcomes from a unique large sample of high-stakes salary negotiations between recent college graduates and prospective employers. Although females state salary requests to a larger extent than males do, they ask for lower salaries, and are offered lower starting salaries also for the same request. These gender gaps are small, yet noteworthy considering the homogeneity of the sample. Notably, the study highlights the importance of negotiation behavior as accounting for females stating lower salary requests largely reduced or even closed the gender pay gap in subsequent starting salaries. 

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• Gender of the immediate manager and women's wages: The importance of managerial position

  2018. Karin Halldén, Jenny Säve-Söderbergh, Asa Rosen. Social Science Research 72, 115-133

  Article

  One argument for increasing female representation in management is the expectation that female managers will be particularly beneficial for female employees through, e.g., role modeling, mentoring or providing other incentives to enhance female productivity. We explore this issue by analyzing the association between women's wages and the gender of their immediate managers using Swedish matched employee-employer data from 2010. Contrary to the expected positive association, we find that wages are overall 3% lower for female employees with a female instead of male manager. However, dividing the sample by managerial position and controlling for the sorting of employees with respect to, e.g., non-cognitive traits, work tasks, family commitment and establishment gender composition, the negative association is found only for female employees working for lower-level managers, not for women with a manager at the highest rank. One possible explanation could be a difference in decision-making power if lower-level female managers have more limited resources for their subordinates compared to lower-level male managers.

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• Children Do Not Behave Like Adults

  2017. Jenny Säve-Söderbergh, Gabriella Sjögren Lindquist. Economic Journal 127 (603), 1665-1692

  Article

  Using unique panel data, we compare the cognitive performance and wagering behaviour of children (10-11 years) with that of adults playing the Swedish version of the TV shows Jeopardy and Junior Jeopardy. Although facing the same well known high-stakes game, and controlling for performance differences, there is no gender gap in risk taking between girls and boys in contrast to adults; while girls assume more risk than women, boys assume less risk than men. We also find that female behaviour is differently sensitive to social context. Whereas women wager less, girls perform worse and employ inferior wagering strategies when randomly assigned to male opponents.

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• Makar som delar på kakan – en ESO-rapport om jämställda pensioner

  2017. Jenny Säve-Söderbergh.

  Report

  Pensionssystemet är neutralt i bemärkelsen att systemet inte gör skillnad på kvinnor och män, samtidigt som det bygger på livsinkomstprincipen. Men det betyder också att inkomstskillnader i yrkeslivet leder till att kvinnor får lägre pension än män. Inom pensionssystemet finns även vissa möjligheter att jämna ut pensionsinkomsterna mellan makar, varav två finns inom premiepensionen: att överlåta pensionsrätter till sin maka/make respektive att teckna efterlevandeskydd. I båda fallen krävs ett aktivt val och de är också förknippade med kostnader. I denna rapport till ESO beskriver Jenny Säve-Söderbergh i vilken utsträckning dessa möjligheter utnyttjas och av vem. Det framgår att det är ytterst få personer som väljer att överlåta pensionsrätter, medan det är vanligare att teckna efterlevandeskydd. Mot denna bakgrund diskuterar författaren avslutningsvis policyförslag rörande förvalsdesign och informationsinsatser. De ojämställda pensionerna har sin grund i de löneskillnader som finns mellan män och kvinnor i yrkeslivet. Olika orsaker till dessa löneskillnader diskuteras i ESO-rapporten ”Olika kön, olika lön – en ESO-rapport om diskriminering på arbetsmarknaden” (ESO 2017:5).

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• Children do not behave like adults: Gender gaps in performance and risk taking within a random social context in the high-stakes game shows Jeopardy and Junior Jeopardy

  2013. Jenny Säve-Söderbergh, Gabriella Sjögren Lindquist.

  Report

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• Securing victory or not? Surrendering optimal play when facing simple calculations

  2012. Gabriella Sjögren Lindquist, Jenny Säve-Söderbergh. Applied Economics 44 (6), 777-783

  Article

  This article empirically investigates the common assumption of economicagents' capabilities to process complex mathematical problems to findoptimal strategies applied in economic modelling. By exploiting a designdifference in the game show Jeopardy between the US and Sweden, weobtain a natural experiment of individuals facing an optimization decisioneither having explicit information or deriving it by noncomplex adding andsubtracting. Given the assumption that individuals compute optimally,there should be no difference in the strategies used. Yet, the results showthat even a small change in informational pre-conditions for obtaining anoptimal strategy strongly alters economic-decision making.

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• Self-Directed Pensions

  2012. Jenny Säve-Söderbergh. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 114 (3), 705-728

  Article

  In this paper, I investigate gender differences in financial risk-taking from a new perspective, and I show that gender plays a different role across the risk distribution. To evaluate risk-taking, I exploit portfolio choices following a reform that entitles almost the entire Swedish workforce to choose a risk profile for a part of their public-pension contributions. The novel finding is that portfolio risk does not differ much between the men and women who choose less risky portfolios, while the men who choose risky portfolios take on significantly more risk than do the women who choose risky portfolios. The findings are robust to investors choosing the default alternative, chasing past returns, rebalancing, and different measures of risk-taking.

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• Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Sweden

  2011. Johan Almenberg, Jenny Säve-Söderbergh. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance 10 (4), 585-598

  Article

  We use data from the Swedish Financial Supervisory 2010 consumer survey to look at levels of financial literacy and retirement planning in the Swedish population. The results indicate that many adults have low financial literacy. In general, financial literacy levels are lower among the young, the old, women and those with low income or low educational attainment. People who report having tried to plan for retirement have higher levels of financial literacy. In particular, an understanding of risk diversification is strongly correlated with planning for retirement. We relate our findings to features of the Swedish pension system. 

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• Girls will be Girls - Especially among Boys

  2011. Gabriella Sjögren Lindquist, Jenny Säve-Söderbergh. Economics Letters 112 (2), 158-160

  Article

  Exploiting a natural experiment in Jeopardy we find that, despite no strategic gain, females switch to a more conservative wagering if playing against men only. Our findings complement experimental findings highlighting how gender differences in risk-taking can be socially driven.

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• Are Women Asking for Low Wages? Gender Differences in Wage Bargaining Strategies and Ensuing Bargaining Success

  2007. Jenny Säve-Söderbergh.

  Report

  Men and women’s labor market outcomes differ along pay, promotion and competitiveness. This paper contributes by uncovering results in a related unexplored field using unique data on individual wage bargaining. We find striking gender differences. Women, like men, also bargain, but they submit lower wage bids and are offered lower wages than men. The adjusted gender wage gap is lower with postedwage jobs than with individual bargaining, although less is ascribable to the term associated with discrimination. Both women and men use self-promoting, or competitive bargaining strategies, but women self-promote at lower levels. Employers reward self-promotion but the larger the self-promotion, the larger is the gender gap in bargaining success. Women therefore lack the incentives to self-promote, which helps to explain the gender disparities.

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Show all publications by Jenny Säve-Söderbergh at Stockholm University