Kolloquium: Silke Uebelmesser

Gender inequality is a widespread phenomenon, which touches different spheres and different stages of the life cycle, from education, to labor market and retirement. Gender gaps in earnings and pensions remain persistent features, shaping both economic outcomes and perceptions of fairness. Understanding how people respond to information about these inequalities is crucial for designing effective policy interventions. We conduct a survey experiment with about four thousand German respondents and provide them with information on either one or both of two measures of gender inequality: the gender gap in earnings and the gender gap in pensions. We analyze the effect of information provision on respondents' views of gender inequality as a key issue and on their agreement with the adoption of different policies targeted at different stages of the life cycle and aimed at reducing the gaps. We find that providing information changes perceptions of the importance of reducing gender inequality. Being informed about both gaps has the largest impact on agreement with policy goals and the adoption of associated measures targeted at reducing gender inequality. Information provision has larger effects on women and on younger respondents, while treatment effects do not differ by political leaning. By exploring the mechanisms behind our results, we provide insights into how individual views correlate with preferences for reducing gender inequality.