Hormone Therapy and Discrimination in the Labor Market: Emerging Experimental Evidence on the Economics of Endocrinology

ABSTRACT

Background

Gender transitioning is increasingly common, but little is known about the extent to which individuals in transition and fully transitioned suffer from wage discrimination. Methods: Managers in the United States (n=204) were shown photos of white and Asian male and female “employees” at different stages of simulated hormone therapy and were asked to estimate their actual hourly wages based on appearance.

Results

The results suggest that Asian men and women “in transition” and fully transitioned do not suffer from significant wage discrimination. However, among the white stimuli, gender atypical (“in transition” and fully transitioned) men and women are estimated to earn significantly less than their gender typical (sexually dimorphic) counterparts, with some gender-specific nuances.

Conclusions

The effects of hormone therapy may have a deleterious impact on the wages of white transgender individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender identity
• simulated hormone therapy
• social endocrinology
• transgender

Acknowledgments

We thank BHP for funding through their Distinguisher Researcher Award and the respondents for their time. We also thank Alison Preston and Michael Jetter for helpful comments.

Declaration Of Interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (UWA Human Ethics, RA/4/1/9266) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

All participants provided informed consent prior to participation in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the BHP Billiton Distinguished Researcher Award.