How Do Beliefs about the Gender Wage Gap Affect the Demand for Public Policy?

I conduct a survey experiment to study the relationship between people’s beliefs about size of gender wage gap and their demand for policies aimed at mitigating it. Beliefs causally affect support equal pay legislation affirmative action programs, but cannot account polarization in policy views by partisanship gender. Changes seem be driven changes discrimination labor markets fairness concerns, while self-interest appears less important. provide evidence that pessimism effectiveness government intervention limits elasticity perceived differentials. (JEL D63, D83, J16, J22, J31, J71)