Experimental Evidence on the Acceptance of Males Falling Behind

Abstract In recent decades, there has been an increase in the share of males struggling in the labor market and education. We show in a set of large-scale experimental studies involving more than 35,000 Americans that people are more accepting of males falling behind than they are of females falling behind, and less in agreement with government policies supporting males falling behind. We provide evidence of the underlying mechanism being statistical fairness discrimination: People consider males falling behind to be less deserving of support than females falling behind because they are more likely to believe that males fall behind due to lack of effort. These findings are important for understanding how society perceives and responds to the growing number of disadvantaged males.