IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v84y2020ics2214804319302137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender differences in volunteer’s dilemma: Evidence from teamwork among graduate students

Author

Listed:
  • Doğan, Pınar

Abstract

Undertaking logistical tasks in a teamwork setting exhibits a volunteer’s dilemma: it takes only one volunteer to take a costly action to generate a benefit to the entire team. Using naturally-occurring data in a top graduate professional school, I show that female students volunteer significantly more than male students in booking rooms for team meetings. I also find that the gender difference in undertaking this logistical task is statistically and quantitatively significant only when students have limited interaction prior to teamwork. This suggests that when students’ preferences are not completely known to each other, gender stereotyping—beliefs that most female students will undertake such tasks or some male students will not—may disfavor female students who end up bearing a cost higher than males. Even though booking a room involves a relatively small time cost, such costs can add up, and also contribute to gender stereotyping in allocation of tasks in other team settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Doğan, Pınar, 2020. "Gender differences in volunteer’s dilemma: Evidence from teamwork among graduate students," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:84:y:2020:i:c:s2214804319302137
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2019.101488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804319302137
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2019.101488?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cabrales, Antonio & Garcia-Fontes, Walter & Motta, Massimo, 2000. "Risk dominance selects the leader: An experimental analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 137-162, January.
    2. Diekmann, Andreas, 1993. "Cooperation in an Asymmetric Volunteer's Dilemma Game: Theory and Experimental Evidence," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 22(1), pages 75-85.
    3. Andreas Diekmann, 1985. "Volunteer's Dilemma," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(4), pages 605-610, December.
    4. Linda Babcock & Maria P. Recalde & Lise Vesterlund, 2017. "Gender Differences in the Allocation of Low-Promotability Tasks: The Role of Backlash," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 131-135, May.
    5. Andrew J. Healy & Jennifer G. Pate, 2018. "Cost asymmetry and incomplete information in a volunteer’s dilemma experiment," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(3), pages 465-491, October.
    6. Linda Babcock & Maria P. Recalde & Lise Vesterlund & Laurie Weingart, 2017. "Gender Differences in Accepting and Receiving Requests for Tasks with Low Promotability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 714-747, March.
    7. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    8. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Smith, Angela M., 2017. "An experimental examination of the volunteer's dilemma," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 303-315.
    9. Axel Franzen, 1995. "Group Size and One-Shot Collective Action," Rationality and Society, , vol. 7(2), pages 183-200, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dogan, Pinar, 2019. "Gender Differences in Volunteer's Dilemma: Evidence from Teamwork among Graduate Students," Working Paper Series rwp19-001, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    2. Campos-Mercade, Pol, 2021. "The volunteer’s dilemma explains the bystander effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 646-661.
    3. Bergstrom, Ted & Garratt, Rodney & Leo, Greg, 2019. "Let me, or let George? Motives of competing altruists," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 269-283.
    4. Ayse Gül Mermer & Sander Onderstal & Joep Sonnemans, "undated". "Can Communication Mitigate Strategic Delays in Investment Timing?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-033/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Wang, Tse-Min & Heine, Florian & van Witteloostuijn, Arjen, 2023. "Pro-social risk-taking and intergroup conflict: A volunteer's dilemma experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 363-379.
    6. Pol Campos-Mercade, 2020. "When are groups less moral than individuals?," CEBI working paper series 20-26, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    7. Lise Vesterlund, 2015. "Breaking the Glass Ceiling with "No": Gender Differences in Accepting and Receiving Requests for Non-Promotable Tasks," Working Paper 5663, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh.
    8. Campos-Mercade, Pol, 2022. "When are groups less moral than individuals?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 20-36.
    9. Kopányi-Peuker, Anita, 2019. "Yes, I’ll do it: A large-scale experiment on the volunteer’s dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 211-218.
    10. Yixuan Shi, 2022. "Dynamic Volunteer’s Dilemma with Procrastinators," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2022-17, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    11. Brishti Guha, 2020. "Revisiting the volunteer's dilemma: group size and public good provision in the presence of some ambiguity aversion," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1308-1318.
    12. Friedel Bolle & Philipp E. Otto, 2022. "The flip side of power," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 75-92, January.
    13. Toshiji Kawagoe & Taisuke Matsubae & Hirokazu Takizawa, 2018. "Quantal response equilibria in a generalized Volunteer’s Dilemma and step-level public goods games with binary decision," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 11-23, June.
    14. Shakun D. Mago & Jennifer Pate, 2023. "Greed and fear: Competitive and charitable priming in a threshold volunteer's dilemma," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(1), pages 138-161, January.
    15. Hillenbrand, Adrian & Werner, Tobias & Winter, Fabian, 2022. "Willingness to volunteer among remote workers is insensitive to the team size," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-050, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Bosworth, Steven J. & Clot, Sophie & Della Giusta, Marina, 2019. "DIY or Ask Someone Nice?," IZA Discussion Papers 12406, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    18. Wojtek Przepiorka & Andreas Diekmann, 2018. "Heterogeneous groups overcome the diffusion of responsibility problem in social norm enforcement," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-18, November.
    19. Della Giusta, Marina & Clot, Sophie & Razzu, Giovanni, 2019. "The behavioural foundations of female entrepreneurship: what can experiments teach us?," MPRA Paper 91483, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Adrian Hillenbrand & Tobias Werner & Fabian Winter, 2020. "Volunteering at the Workplace under Incomplete Information: Teamsize Does Not Matter," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2020_04, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:84:y:2020:i:c:s2214804319302137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.