Gender gaps may be observed in a variety of economic and social environments. One of the possible determining factors is that men are more competitive than women and so, when the competitiveness of the environment increases, the performance of men increases relative to that of women. We test this hypothesis in a field study conducted with 9-year old children, running on a track. They first run alone and then in pairs over a short distance with different gender composition of the pairs. The results support the hypothesis that performance in competition varies according to gender. When children ran alone, there was no difference in performance. In competition boys, but not girls, improved their performance. This finding relates to the discussion regarding single sex schools: the outcomes of examinations in a mixed sex school can show a gender gap in favor of boys, even when this gap does not reflect actual abilities. Girls who are as talented as boys will end up performing worse just because they are not as competitive, and will not achieve as high scores in examinations as boys.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
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Fernando Aguiar & Pablo Brañas-Garza & Ramón Cobo-Reyes & Natalia Jimenez & Luis Miller, 2009.
"Are women expected to be more generous?,"
Experimental Economics,
Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 93-98, March.
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Fernando Aguiar & Pablo Brañas-Garza & Natalia Jiménez & Luis Miller, 2007.
"Are women expected to be more generous?,"
ThE Papers
07/08, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
[Downloadable!]
Marie-Claire Villeval & Nabanita Datta Gupta & Anders Poulsen, 2005.
"Male and Female Competitive Behavior - Experimental Evidence,"
Working Papers
0512, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique (GATE), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 2, Ecole Normale Supérieure.
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