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Gender and Competition in Adolescence: Task Matter

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Author Info

  • Dreber, Anna

    () (Stockholm School of Economics)

  • von Essen, Emma

    () (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University)

  • Ranehill, Eva

    () (University of Zürich)

Abstract

We look at gender differences among adolescents in Sweden in preferences for competition, altruism and risk. For competitiveness, we explore two different tasks that differ in associated stereotypes. We find no gender difference in competitiveness when comparing performance under competition to that without competition. We further find that boys and girls are equally likely to self-select into competition in a verbal task, but that boys are significantly more likely to choose to compete in a mathematical task. This gender gap diminishes and becomes non-significant when we control for actual performance and beliefs about relative performance. These results show that among adolescents in our sample, the gender gap in competitiveness is not due to preferences for competition per se. Girls are also more altruistic and less risk taking than boys.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Stockholm University, Department of Economics in its series Research Papers in Economics with number 2011:14.

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Length: 18 pages
Date of creation: 11 Apr 2011
Date of revision: 08 Mar 2013
Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2011_0014

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Postal: Department of Economics, Stockholm, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46 8 16 20 00
Fax: +46 8 16 14 25
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Web page: http://www.ne.su.se/
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Keywords: Competitiveness; risk preferences; altruism; adolescents; gender differences; experiment;

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References

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  1. Alison L. Booth & Patrick Nolen, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Behaviour: Does Nurture Matter?," CEPR Discussion Papers 601, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
  2. Dreber, Anna & von Essen, Emma & Ranehill, Eva, 2009. "Outrunning the Gender Gap – Boys and Girls Compete Equally," SIFR Research Report Series 69, Institute for Financial Research.
  3. Sutter, Matthias & Kocher, Martin G. & Rützler, Daniela & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2010. "Impatience and Uncertainty: Experimental Decisions Predict Adolescents' Field Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 5404, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
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