Men can earn bonuses for trying. Women have to deliver.

A new study has identified what researchers describe as a “gender criteria gap” in workplace evaluation, suggesting that women in leadership roles are judged more strictly on outcomes, while men are assessed based on both results and perceived intentions. The findings, published in the International Economic Review, point to a structural imbalance that may disadvantage women in performance-based reward systems.

“We call this the gender criteria gap,” said Dr Koh Boon Han, Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Exeter Business School. “Different criteria are being used to judge and remunerate men and women. For men, outcomes matter, but the underlying perception of what a man has done also matters. For women, only outcomes matter, and the perception of what a woman has done does not.”

The research is based on a controlled experiment involving around 600 participants divided into groups of three. In each group, one participant acted as a leader and the other two as evaluators. The leader made an investment decision for the group, balancing higher potential returns against personal cost. Outcomes were partly determined by luck, introducing uncertainty into performance results.

After the decision was made, the leader’s gender was revealed and evaluators formed initial perceptions of the leader’s intentions, which were later updated once results were known. They then decide whether to award a bonus or impose a penalty.

The researchers found that although evaluators formed similar perceptions about the actions taken by male and female leaders, those perceptions translated into different financial outcomes. Male leaders were more likely to receive higher bonuses when they were perceived as making decisions in the group’s interest. By contrast, similar positive perceptions had little effect on rewards for female leaders.

At the same time, return on investment and final outcomes remained important for both genders. However, Dr Koh said the findings suggest that “great results are necessary for women to get bonuses, but that men can get bonuses for a less optimal result as long as their actions are held in high regard.” The study also found that male leaders could still receive bonuses even when outcomes were poor, provided evaluators believed their intentions were positive.

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The researchers argued that this difference highlights a deeper issue in how performance is assessed. Professor Nisvan Erkal from the University of Melbourne said the issue lies not only in bias but also in how outcomes are weighted differently by gender.

“An evaluator could be assessing two female leaders whose results are the same,” she said. “For some reason, the evaluator thinks one of them has acted in their self-interest, whereas the other has acted in the interests of the group. But the evaluator doesn’t reward them differently, because only the outcomes matter. Yet when men are perceived to have acted in the interest of the group, the evaluator rewards them regardless of the outcome of their actions.”

The study also challenges the assumption that performance-based pay should rely solely on measurable outcomes, arguing that such systems may unintentionally exacerbate inequality in environments characterised by uncertainty.

Professor Lata Gangadharan from Monash University warned that overreliance on outcomes could disproportionately disadvantage women leaders. “Imagine a scenario where there’s so much uncertainty, and the outcomes are predominantly luck-driven,” she said. “If you’re only rewarding women for successful outcomes, then this can disproportionately hurt them. They’re going to be punished for bad luck in a disproportionate way.”