Stereotypes, Prejudices and Gender Discrimination

Gender inequality is a long-standing problem in the Spanish labour market. The annual salary of women with full-time employment represents 85.9% of men's wages (INE, 2011), and it is among the few countries in Europe with maternal employment rates (children under 15) lower than 60 percent (OECD, 2011). Our project aims to understand if gender stereotypes and prejudices associated with (potential) maternity inhibit women’s opportunities to access certain jobs and, in addition, due to statistical discrimination, limit internal mobility.

Statistical discrimination a concept emerging from a theory of inequality based on stereotypes. According to this theory, inequality is generated because social or economic actors, which in our case study would be employers, give preferential treatment to certain groups based on attitudes derived from expectations about average group-level social behaviour. Thus, in a scenario of limited information, as in the process of selecting candidates and/or giving a promotion, a decision maker supplements the shortage of information about a candidate (motivation, involvement, capacity, etc.) with her generalizations based on an average understanding of group-level behaviour. The result is that atypical individuals, such as women with small children, suffer unfair discrimination.

Gender discrimination is a problem of social justice, and a lost of human resources for a nation. The results of this research contribute to improving gender equality policies in the field of the labour market and reconciliation. The research provides three novel insights into: the persistence of gender stereotypes, especially those associated with motherhood; the impact of stereotypes in career advancement of women, and finally; price of gender inequality through the wage penalty associated with motherhood.