Children Show a Gender Gap in Negotiation

In the United States, there is an unfortunate yet pervasive gender gap in wages: Women tend to make less than men for doing the same work. One prominent account for why this wage gap exists is that women and men negotiate differently. However, we currently do not know whether differences in negotiation are a product of extensive experience or are deeply rooted in development. Here, we brought data from children to bear on this important question. We gave 240 children between the ages of 4 and 9 years old a chance to negotiate for a bonus with a female or a male evaluator. Boys asked for the same bonus from a male and a female evaluator. Older girls, in contrast, asked for a smaller bonus from a male than a female evaluator. Our findings suggest that a gender gap in negotiation emerges surprisingly early in development, highlighting childhood as a key period for interventions.