The Effects of Sexism on American Women

Abstract

We examine the extent and channels through which reported sexism affects American women. Using a sample of internal migrants and an instrumental variable (IV) approach, we show that higher prevailing sexism where a woman currently resides adversely affects her labor market outcomes relative to men, increases marriage, and reduces childbearing age. We attempt to disentangle the roles of discrimination and norms by comparing the effects of male versus female sexism and various percentiles of the sexism distribution. Overall, the findings are consistent with the importance of prejudice-based discrimination for labor market gaps and social norms for women’s non-labor market outcomes.