Gender Differences in the Allocation of Low-Promotability Tasks: The Role of Backlash

Abstract

This paper examines whether backlash exacerbates gender differences in time spent on low-promotability tasks. We ask whether gender differences found in previous research--women receiving more requests than men to do these tasks and women being more likely to accept such requests--amplify by the prospect of penalties for declining the request. We replicate prior findings but find no evidence that penalties increase the gender differences in task allocation. In addition, we find that the penalties men impose on others for saying “no” are larger than those imposed by women.