New economic research suggests that the attitudes toward a woman when she is born have a lasting impact on how much she works, and earns, as an adult, The New York Times reports.
White women born in parts of the United States where sexist attitudes are more prevalent—like the South—grow up to earn less and to work less than women born elsewhere, relative to men born in those same states, new economic research shows.
That impact on career and salary continues even if those women move to less sexist areas as adults, a finding that suggests the beliefs a woman grows up with can shape her future behavior in a way that affects her career and salary.
The research—which will be released as a working paper on Monday from the three economists—highlights a continued divergence across the United States in social attitudes about the role of women in the workforce. It shows how much location—where a woman is born and where she chooses to live as an adult—matters for her work and pay.
Perhaps most strikingly, the study finds that a woman’s lifelong earnings and how much she works are influenced by the levels of sexism in the state where she was born. A woman born in the Deep South is likely to face a much wider economic gender gap than a woman born on the Pacific Coast, the research shows, even if both women move to New York as adults.
To make sure they were focusing only on gender, and not racial, discrimination, the researchers studied only white adults. While the researchers expect that the same gender gaps apply to other demographics, they were unsure how much of the disparity could be attributed to racial—versus gender—discrimination.
