Female employees consistently pay lower airfares than men do for the same flights because they tend to book earlier.
We compared the airfare paid by employees in the same position within a company for the same class of travel and used a common statistical technique to account for other factors that might affect differences in airfares.We found that women paid on average $18 less per ticket than their male colleagues.Further investigation allowed us to conclude that this gap is largely explained by the fact that women tended to book earlier than men,1.8 days on average.
We wanted to determine what was causing these gender differences in booking business trips so we tested a variety of possible explanations,such as women choosing to plan ahead or male frequent travelers being inclined to book late.None of these explained away the gender gap,so we applied data collected from surveys that express consumer preferences that play a central role in economic decisions,such as patience and risk avoidance.
We found that only the concept of "negative reciprocity"-in which an employee who feels unfairly treated engages in negative behaviors,such as spending their company's money less carefully-explains these differences.The surveys showed men tend to exhibit more of these negative behaviors than women.This isn't to say that all men engage in these behaviors—or that booking relatively late is a sign of abnormal behavior.It only means that the gender gap disappears when we plug in the negative reciprocity variable.
Prior research on negative reciprocity among workers found that it can result in lower employee motivation, business performance and workplace morale (士气)and culture.
Our results show another way these negative behaviors can manifest themselves,like in airline bookings, and add to evidence that women are less likely to engage in them.
Companies spend significant sums of money on business travel.While that $18 difference per ticket may seem small,it adds up.Our analysis suggests early booking by women can translate into savings of $1 million a year for a large multinational company with 20,000 regular travelers.
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