Study: women wait longer for coffee

BOSTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- A study of Boston coffee shops suggests women tend to wait an average 20 seconds longer for coffee than male customers.

Student researchers, under the instruction of Caitlin Knowles Myers, an assistant professor of economics at Vermont's Middlebury College, spied on 295 customers at eight Boston coffee shops and timed how long it took their orders to be filled, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.

Myers said the study adjusted for the longer time it takes to prepare more complicated drinks -- 75 percent of women and 55 percent of men watched in the study ordered "fancy" drinks -- to remove the factor as a possible explanation for women's longer wait times.

The study, titled "Ladies First? A Field Study of Discrimination in Coffee Shops," suggests the longer wait for female customers could partially be attributed to sexism on the part of male servers and partially attributed to male servers taking extra time to flirt with women who ordered drinks.

However, female customers still waited an average 7 seconds longer than men in coffee shops with all female workers. The average wait in shops with all male employees was 37 seconds longer for women.