Past Session
Wednesday, January 28, 2026
12h15

Safety first: gender differences in screening on an online platform

Abstract

We investigate gender differences in economic outcomes on the largest carpooling platform in Europe, combining correspondence studies, scraped platform data and survey experiments. We find that although female drivers are strongly preferred by passengers, they do not earn higher revenues. We reconcile this paradox by showing that female drivers screen out passengers more than men do, driven by differences in perceived risk and tolerance for potentially unsafe passengers.

About this workshop

The Transport, Energy and Climate Economics workshop is an online seminar series in the fields of transport, energy and environmental economics.

The group provides a forum for exchange between researchers in these closely related sub-fields. The work is mainly in the field of economics, but contributions from related disciplines are regularly welcomed. The group allows both the presentation of very accomplished work and the discussion of research in progress, enabling authors to benefit from comments to refine their work.