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Does team competition eliminate the gender gap in entry in competitive environments ?

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  • Marie-Pierre Dargnies

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of the possibility to enter a tournament as a team on the gender gap in tournament entry. While a large and significant gender gap in entry in the individual tournament is found in line with the literature, no gender gap is found in entry in the team tournament. While women do not choose to enter the tournament significantly more often when it is team-based, men enter significantly less as part of a team than alone. Changes in overconfidence as well as in risk, ambiguity and feedback aversion, the difference in men and women's taste for the uncertainty on their teammate's ability all account for a part of the disappearance of the gender gap in tournament entry. A remaining explanation is that being part of a team changes men and women's taste for performing in a competitive environment.

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  • Marie-Pierre Dargnies, 2009. "Does team competition eliminate the gender gap in entry in competitive environments ?," Post-Print halshs-00367702, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00367702
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00367702
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    Cited by:

    1. Yann Girard & Florian Hett, 2013. "Competitiveness in dynamic group contests: Evidence from combined field and lab data," Working Papers 1303, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, revised 01 Apr 2013.
    2. Migheli, Matteo, 2010. "Gender at Work: Productivity and Incentives," AICCON Working Papers 74-2010, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    3. John Ifcher & Homa Zarghamee, 2016. "Pricing competition: a new laboratory measure of gender differences in the willingness to compete," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 642-662, September.
    4. Clot, Sophie & Della Giusta, Marina & Razzu, Giovanni, 2020. "Gender Gaps in Competition: New Experimental Evidence from UK Professionals," IZA Discussion Papers 13323, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Goodall, Amanda H. & Osterloh, Margit, 2015. "Women Have to Enter the Leadership Race to Win: Using Random Selection to Increase the Supply of Women into Senior Positions," IZA Discussion Papers 9331, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Cadsby, C. Bram & Servátka, Maroš & Song, Fei, 2013. "How competitive are female professionals? A tale of identity conflict," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 284-303.
    7. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur & Joeri Sol & Willem Verbeke, 2013. "Tournament Incentives in the Field: Gender Differences in the Workplace," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 305-326.
    8. Ifcher, John & Zarghamee, Homa, 2020. "Do Nominations Close the Gender Gap in Competition?," IZA Discussion Papers 13852, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Sophie Clot & Marina Della Giusta & Giovanni Razzu, 2020. "Gender gaps in competition: new experimental evidence from UK," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-15, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    10. De Paola, Maria & Gioia, Francesca & Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2015. "Are females scared of competing with males? Results from a field experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 117-128.
    11. Yang, Fanzheng, 2013. "Using laboratory experiments to study otherwise unobservable labor market interactions," ISU General Staff Papers 201301010800004100, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    12. Zhang, Peilu & Zhang, Yinjunjie & Palma, Marco, 2018. "Social Norms and Competitiveness: My Willingness to Compete Depends on Who I am (supposed to be)," MPRA Paper 89727, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    Keywords

    Equipes; tournoi; effet de genre.; teams; Gender gap; tournament; teams.;
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