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Gender differences in social risk taking

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  • Friedl, Andreas
  • Pondorfer, Andreas
  • Schmidt, Ulrich

Abstract

Women in Western societies are typically more risk averse than men in individual risk taking decisions. In real life, however, risk taking decisions are usually made in a social context. So far, empirical evidence whether gender differences are also present in the social risk taking domain is missing. We use a controlled experiment to analyze gender differences in social risk taking. We find that inequality aversion is the main driver for risk aversion in social risk taking. Disaggregating the data for males and females shows that this effect is mainly driven by strong inequality aversion of women. Moreover, by running the experiment with non-standard subjects from an egalitarian small-scale society, our results suggest that gender differences in social risk taking are culture-specific.

Suggested Citation

  • Friedl, Andreas & Pondorfer, Andreas & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2020. "Gender differences in social risk taking," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:77:y:2020:i:c:s016748701830641x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2019.06.005
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic experiments; Social risk taking; Gender differences; Cultural-comparative analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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