IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v205y2021ics0165176521002202.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do women give up competing more easily? Evidence from speedcubers

Author

Listed:
  • Fang, Chao
  • Zhang, Ernest
  • Zhang, Junfu

Abstract

We analyze a large sample of participants in mixed-gender Rubik’s Cube competitions. Focusing on participants who barely made or missed the cut for the second round in a competition, we examine their likelihood of joining another competition in the future. We find a significant gender difference: Whereas boys are slightly discouraged by failing to qualify for the second round, girls are affected more and are more likely to give up forever. Furthermore, we find that this gender difference is most significant in countries with larger gender gaps in labor market outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Fang, Chao & Zhang, Ernest & Zhang, Junfu, 2021. "Do women give up competing more easily? Evidence from speedcubers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:205:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521002202
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109943
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176521002202
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109943?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uri Gneezy & Kenneth L. Leonard & John A. List, 2009. "Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1637-1664, September.
    2. Thomas Buser & Huaiping Yuan, 2019. "Do Women Give Up Competing More Easily? Evidence from the Lab and the Dutch Math Olympiad," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 225-252, July.
    3. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    4. Alison Booth & Elliott Fan & Xin Meng & Dandan Zhang, 2019. "Gender Differences in Willingness to Compete: The Role of Culture and Institutions," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(618), pages 734-764.
    5. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2011. "Gender and Competition," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 601-630, September.
    6. Thomas Buser & Muriel Niederle & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2014. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Career Choices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1409-1447.
    7. Y Jane Zhang, 2019. "Culture, Institutions and the Gender Gap in Competitive Inclination: Evidence from the Communist Experiment in China," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 509-552.
    8. Ernesto Reuben & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2019. "Taste for competition and the gender gap among young business professionals," Working Papers 20190031, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Nov 2019.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haeckl, Simone & Kartal, Melis, 2021. "Does a stereotype benefit women in the labor market: An experiment on perseverance," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2021/5, University of Stavanger.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johnsen, Åshild A. & Finseraas, Henning & Hanson, Torbjørn & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2023. "The malleability of competitive preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    2. Buser, Thomas & van den Assem, Martijn J. & van Dolder, Dennie, 2023. "Gender and willingness to compete for high stakes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 350-370.
    3. Eber, Nicolas & François, Abel & Weill, Laurent, 2021. "Gender, age, and attitude toward competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 668-690.
    4. Cassar, Alessandra & Zhang, Y. Jane, 2022. "The competitive woman: Evolutionary insights and cross-cultural evidence into finding the Femina Economica," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 447-471.
    5. Hoyer, Britta & van Huizen, Thomas & Keijzer, Linda & Rezaei, Sarah & Rosenkranz, Stephanie & Westbrock, Bastian, 2020. "Gender, competitiveness, and task difficulty: Evidence from the field," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Markowsky, Eva & Beblo, Miriam, 2022. "When do we observe a gender gap in competition entry? A meta-analysis of the experimental literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 139-163.
    7. Carlsson, Fredrik & Lampi, Elina & Martinsson, Peter & Yang, Xiaojun, 2020. "Replication: Do women shy away from competition? Experimental evidence from China," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    8. Booth, Alison & Lee, Jungmin, 2021. "Girls’ and boys’ performance in competitions: What we can learn from a Korean quiz show," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 431-447.
    9. Rodríguez-Planas, Nuria & Sanz-de-Galdeano, Anna & Terskaya, Anastasia, 2022. "Gender norms in high school: Impacts on risky behaviors from adolescence to adulthood," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 429-456.
    10. Jeworrek, Sabrina, 2019. "Gender stereotypes still in MIND: Information on relative performance and competition entry," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    11. Nathan Barrymore & Cristian L. Dezső & Benjamin C. King, 2022. "Gender and competitiveness when earning for others: Experimental evidence and implications for sponsorship," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 905-934, May.
    12. Aurélie Dariel & Nikos Nikiforakis & Jan Stoop, 2020. "Does selection bias cause us to overestimate gender differences in competitiveness?," Working Papers 20200046, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised May 2020.
    13. Maitra, Pushkar & Neelim, Ananta & Tran, Chau, 2021. "The role of risk and negotiation in explaining the gender wage gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 1-27.
    14. Kessel, Dany & Mollerstrom, Johanna & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2021. "Can simple advice eliminate the gender gap in willingness to compete?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 138, pages 1-1.
    15. Thomas Buser, 2016. "The Impact of Losing in a Competition on the Willingness to Seek Further Challenges," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3439-3449, December.
    16. Oriana Bandiera & Nidhi Parekh & Barbara Petrongolo & Michelle Rao, 2022. "Men are from Mars, and Women Too: A Bayesian Meta‐analysis of Overconfidence Experiments," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(S1), pages 38-70, June.
    17. Valeria Maggian & Antonio Nicolò, 2016. "The wrong man for the job: biased beliefs and job mismatching," Post-Print halshs-01324733, HAL.
    18. Abu Siddique & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2020. "Competitive Preferences and Ethnicity: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(627), pages 793-821.
    19. José De Sousa & Guillaume Hollard, 2023. "From Micro to Macro Gender Differences: Evidence from Field Tournaments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3358-3399, June.
    20. Cornaglia, Francesca & Drouvelis, Michalis & Masella, Paolo, 2019. "Competition and the role of group identity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 136-145.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender gap; Competition; Rubik’s cube;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:205:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521002202. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.