Although gender-based price discrimination (“Pink Tax”) has gained significant attention, existing research lacks a thorough exploration of the underlying mechanisms driving this phenomenon, particularly from the perspective of informational gaps. This paper, taking cosmetics, fashion, and healthcare industries as examples, has analyzed gender-based pricing discrimination along with its economic and social impacts. The analysis reveals that gender socialization creates information gaps and consumption preference differences, leading enterprises to exploit women’s sensitivity to emotional value through price discrimination. At the same time, this paper emphasizes the importance of advertisement and social media when it comes to communication, especially promoting and reflecting gender socialization and stereotypes. Through all mentioned above, information gaps between genders are Accordingly, this paper proposes three recommendations: reshaping gender role perceptions through media, improving anti-price discrimination legal frameworks, and guiding consumers to distinguish between functional and emotional purchasing behaviors, all aiming to reduce gender-based pricing disparities and promote fairer market practices.
J. Zhang (Wed,) studied this question.