Do Workers Accurately Perceive Gender Wage Discrimination?

Using data from a 1987 American Medical Association survey of young physicians, the authors investigate how accurately the women in the sample perceived the gender wage discrimination affecting them. Contrary to the conclusion of some studies that women inaccurately perceive gender discrimination against them, this study finds a strong, positive correlation between women's perceptions of the gender income differences they were experiencing and econometric estimates of those differences. The women in this sample accurately perceived gender wage discrimination, and built that perception into their judgment of the amount by which they were underpaid.