Arbeitspapier
Gender gaps in performance: Evidence from young lawyers
This paper documents and studies the gender gap in performance among associate lawyers in the United States. Unlike other high-skilled professions, the legal profession assesses performance using transparent measures that are widely used and comparable across firms: the number of hours billed to clients and the amount of new client revenue generated. We find clear evidence of a gender gap in annual performance with respect to both measures. Male lawyers bill ten percent more hours and bring in more than twice the new client revenue than do female lawyers. We demonstrate that the differential impact across genders in the presence of young children and differences in aspirations to become a law firm partner account for a large share of the difference in performance. We also show that accounting for performance has important consequences for gender gaps in lawyers' earnings and subsequent promotion. Whereas individual and firm characteristics explain up to 50 percent of the earnings gap, the inclusion of performance measures explains a substantial share of the remainder. Performance measures also explain a sizeable share of the gender gap in promotion.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Working Paper ; No. 756
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Personnel Economics: Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior: General
Professional Labor Markets; Occupational Licensing
- Subject
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Performance measures
Gender gaps
High-skilled professionals
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Azmat, Ghazala
Ferrer, Rosa
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance
- (where)
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London
- (when)
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2015
- Handle
- Last update
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10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Azmat, Ghazala
- Ferrer, Rosa
- Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance
Time of origin
- 2015
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