Abstract
Having a larger high-skill workforce increases productivity, so it is useful to understand how workers self-select into high-paying technology (tech) jobs. This study examines how workers decide whether or not to pursue tech, through an experiment in which subjects are offered a short programming job. Despite the persistent gender gap in computer science fields, female subjects in this incentivized experiment are equally confident and willing to program. The most important determinants of the “reservation wage” for workers to do computer programming are whether they enjoy it and their opportunity cost of time. Two treatments were introduced to increase confidence. Randomly assigned extra information about the programming task has no effect. In some circumstances, an encouraging message raises the reservation wage for programming. (JEL codes: C91, J24, J22).
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