Unfair Tournaments: Gender Stereotyping and Wage Discrimination Among Italian Graduates

Castagnetti, C., Rosti, L. (2013) Unfair Tournaments: Gender Stereotyping and Wage Discrimination among Italian Graduates. Gender & Society, Vol. 27 (5). pp. 630-658

Gender pay discrimination has been prevalent in Italy since 1991 (p. 630). This paper was written in an attempt to explain some of the reasons that there is still a gender wage inequality in Italy today. By surveying over 25000 education graduates, 3 years after their graduation, the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) (p. 632) was able to compile incredible amounts of data relating to gender unemployment rates, pay disparities, job relations to degree, hours worked, educational performance, experience, and type of employment. Using, ‘tournament theory’ (p. 631), which is a competitive system that ranks employees according to their work performance, (measured by talent and effort), Rosti and Castagnetti measure the comparison of women to men; following the assumption that gender stereotyping influences the laws of the tournament in the male’s favour, thereby discriminating females. Another hypothesis is that the tournament would differ, dependent on the type of employment. Self-employed people would have no gender bias, and similarly part-time work would have little discrimination. In education-required jobs, low status positions are unfair to women and males receive increased benefits, while in high status positions the disparities are much less, as employers only hire the finest people eligible for the job. The results show the assumption to be correct.

This study was written to display the disparities between men and women in today’s workplace. It is from a reliable source, as both authors are professors in the department of economics at Pavia University, and displays the point that women are treated unfairly; therefore it can be sighted very useful for the study of income gender inequality.

Rubery, J., Grimshaw, D. (2011). "Gender and the minimum wage." In S. Lee and D. McCann (Eds.), Regulating for Decent Work, (pp. 226-254) Geneva: ILO.

This chapter investigates the importance of a statutory minimum wage and strong collective bargaining coverage throughout Europe and the United States. It is theorized that nations with low or nonexistent minimum wage would have a far higher disparity in the amount of money a woman earns an hour on average compared to men. The same could be said for weak collective bargaining coverage. Countries such as Denmark, Sweden and France all have