A study which was published in the journal Science last week, has found that when men and women sell an equal product on eBay, men fair better in terms of price.
According to the study, which was conducted by Professor of Law and Sociology at Tel Aviv University and Tali Regev an economist at IDC Herzliya, found that, on average, women receive LOWER prices than men.
Analysing 620,000 transactions on the site in the US, researchers found that while there was a subtle difference in used items, when it came to new products, women received just 80 cents for every dollar a male seller received.
eBay does not require sellers to include their gender when setting up an account, and talking about the results of the study, Linda Babcock from Carnegie Mellon University said: “This would be kind of the best example where you would think that discrimination would be at its smallest. So we can interpret these data as a lower bound of what we can expect in other environments.”
However, it wasn’t all bad news.
When it came to items like toys, women actually received higher prices, AND us females have a better reputation as sellers, although we have less selling experience - which may explain why we receive less.
“The basic point? That people have different expectations of women versus men, and so we treat them very differently in the world ? It’s fascinating and depressing,” added Linda.
However, it seems that most buyers are not actually consciously discriminating and that it is a subconscious act - which is definitely GOOD news. .
