Running Head: Employees’ Perceived Gender

Effects of Employees’ Perceived Gender on Their Potential Earnings

Introduction Findings of the 2006 American Community Survey(ACS)reveals that salaries of American women are about 77.3% of that of American men with a similar level of education and are in the same occupational field. Why is that? Are they less educated or less talented? While the average global university enrolment ratio has gone from 160 men per 100 women in 1970 to today at around 93 men per 100 women,the above assumptions don’t seem to stand. So is it possible the underlying reason is as simple as that they are women? My study seeks to examine if a specific employee is perceived as a woman,she/he would be more likely to earn less and get fewer promotion etc. This hypothesis originates from the fact that women are even earning less than their male counterparts in female dominant occupations such as nursing. (Krisberg &Kim 2015). Methods To determine the relationship between gender and compensation decisions, male and female university students would be selected to represent employers. Participants would be divided into 3 groups and they would read descriptions about employees and rate their skills, personality, education, and etc and provide a reasonable compensation plan as if she/he is a employer. Descriptions would be like “X is an easy going person and likes networking with people from different industries. X knows how to use Excel, PowerPoint, Word.” The difference among those 3 groups is that in group one, X is a woman’s name such as Lizzie;in