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Exploring gendered behavior in the field with experiments: Why public goods are provided by women in a Nairobi slum

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Listed author(s):
  • Greig, Fiona
  • Bohnet, Iris

Abstract

Women, and particularly women in all-female groups, appear to be especially adept at providing public goods in developing countries. We use a one-shot Public Goods game to explore the effect of sex and a group's sex composition on the voluntary provision of public goods in a Nairobi slum. Sex heterogeneity hurts the voluntary provision of public goods because women--but not men--contribute less in mixed-sex than same-sex groups. Women contribute as much as men in same-sex groups. This result is driven by women's pessimism and men's optimism about others' contributions in mixed-sex groups rather than by gendered social preferences.

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File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(09)00002-X
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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Volume (Year): 70 (2009)
Issue (Month): 1-2 (May)
Pages: 1-9

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Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:70:y:2009:i:1-2:p:1-9
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo

Keywords: Public goods Gender Field experiments;

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Cited by:

  1. repec:msm:wpaper:2014/20 is not listed on IDEAS
  2. Francois Cochard & Hélène Couprie & Astrid Hopfensitz, 2015. "What if women earned more than their spouse? An experimental investigation of work division in couples," Working Papers hal-01376912, HAL.
  3. Leonardo Becchetti & Pierluigi Conzo & Giacomo Degli Antoni, 2015. "Public disclosure of players’ conduct and common resources harvesting: experimental evidence from a Nairobi slum," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(1), pages 71-96, June.
  4. Bjuggren, Per-Olof & Nordström, Louise & Palmberg, Johanna, 2015. "Efficiency of Female Leaders in Family and Non-Family Firms," Ratio Working Papers 259, The Ratio Institute.
  5. Meier zu Selhausen, Felix, 2016. "Women's empowerment in Uganda: colonial roots and contemporary efforts, 1894-2012," Economics PhD Theses 0715, Department of Economics, University of Sussex.
  6. James Fearon & Macartan Humphreys, 2017. "Why do women co-operate more in women’s groups?," WIDER Working Paper Series 163, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

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