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Gender in Committees

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How does a group’s gender composition influence its decisions? Economists have found women to be more generous and egalitarian than men, so one might expect groups with more women to be more generous/egalitarian. Group polarization, whereby discussions amplify preexisting attitudes (a phenomenon well-established in psychology), would enhance that effect. We report experimental evidence. Femalemajority groups are more generous/egalitarian than male-majority groups,ut female unisex groups are not the most generous/egalitarian. We discuss how these findings accord with our derived conjectures, and what can be learned regarding the influence of gender composition on committee decision-making more generally.

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  • Dufwenberg, Martin & Muren, Astri, 2003. "Gender in Committees," Research Papers in Economics 2003:6, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2003_0006
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    9. Dufwenberg, Martin & Muren, Astri, 2002. "Discrimination by Gender and Social Distance," Research Papers in Economics 2002:2, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; groups; generosity; group polarization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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