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Gender differences: evidence from field tournaments

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  • de Sousa, José
  • Hollard, Guillaume

Abstract

Women are under-represented in top positions, such as in business or in politics. Traditional explanations, like differences in productivity and discrimination, are now complemented by psychological explanations based on lab experiments. We provide the first attempt to assess the comparative importance of psychological and traditional explanations in a natural field experiment, namely chess competitions. Controlling for discrimination and productivity, we find that women are suffering a systematic handicap when playing against men. This "psychological" effect is further amplified through the tournament structure, preventing women from reaching top positions in the chess hierarchy. The effect is only marginally smaller when we consider the most experienced individuals or the most women-friendly countries.

Suggested Citation

  • de Sousa, José & Hollard, Guillaume, 2015. "Gender differences: evidence from field tournaments," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1506, CEPREMAP.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpm:docweb:1506
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Boschini, Anne & Dreber, Anna & von Essen, Emma & Muren, Astri & Ranehill, Eva, 2019. "Gender, risk preferences and willingness to compete in a random sample of the Swedish population✰," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Anna Katharina Pikos & Alexander Straub, 2020. "Mind the Absent Gap: Gender-Specific Competitive Behavior in Nonprofessional Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(3), pages 215-233, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    labor mobility; labor search; wage discrimination;
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