GENDER DISCRIMINATION BY GENDER - VOTING IN A PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY

Although most economic theories of discrimination hypothesize that dis crimination stems from people's discriminatory tastes, no empirical st udy of the labor market has examined tastes for discrimination directl y or considered people's willingness to trade off other preferences to indulge their tastes for discrimination. The authors study this trade -off using a set of data on votes for officers in a professional assoc iation in 1989 and 1990. They find that female voters were much more l ikely to vote for female than for male candidates, and that other affi nities between them and a candidate had little effect on their choices . Male voters, in contrast, were indifferent to the candidates' gender , and their choices were easily altered by other affinities to a candi date.