IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/framed/00158.html

Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities

Author

Listed:
  • Uri Gneezy
  • Moshe Hoffman
  • John List

Abstract

Women remain significantly underrepresented in the science, engineering, and technology workforce. Some have argued that spatial ability differences, which represent the most persistent gender differences in the cognitive literature, are partly responsible for this gap. The underlying forces at work shaping the observed spatial ability differences revolve naturally around the relative roles of nature and nurture. Although these forces remain among the most hotly debated in all of the sciences, the evidence for nurture is tenuous, because it is difficult to compare gender differences among biologically similar groups with distinct nurture. In this study, we use a large-scale incentivized experiment with nearly 1,300 participants to show that the gender gap in spatial abilities, measured by time to solve a puzzle, disappears when we move from a patrilineal society to an adjoining matrilineal society. We also show that about one-third of the effect can be explained by differences in education. Given that none of our participants have experience with puzzle solving and that villagers from both societies have the same means of subsistence and shared genetic background, we argue that these results show the role of nurture in the gender gap in cognitive abilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Uri Gneezy & Moshe Hoffman & John List, 2011. "Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities," Framed Field Experiments 00158, The Field Experiments Website.
    • Handle: RePEc:feb:framed:00158
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00158.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bertrand, Marianne, 2011. "New Perspectives on Gender," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 17, pages 1543-1590, Elsevier.
    2. Lu, Yi & Shi, Xinzheng & Zhong, Songfa, 2018. "Competitive experience and gender difference in risk preference, trust preference and academic performance: Evidence from Gaokao in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1388-1410.
    3. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    4. Giuliano, Paola, 2020. "Gender and Culture," CEPR Discussion Papers 15185, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Siwan Anderson & Chris Bidner, 2021. "An Institutional Perspective on the Economics of the Family," Discussion Papers dp21-14, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    6. Heinz, Matthias & Normann, Hans-Theo & Rau, Holger A., 2016. "How competitiveness may cause a gender wage gap: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 336-349.
    7. Iriberri, Nagore & Rey-Biel, Pedro, 2017. "Stereotypes are only a threat when beliefs are reinforced: On the sensitivity of gender differences in performance under competition to information provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-111.
    8. Georgios Marios Chrysanthou, 2021. "A Multiple Cohort Study of the Gender Gradient of Life Satisfaction during Adolescence: Longitudinal Evidence from Great Britain," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(6), pages 1341-1376, December.
    9. Agarwal, Sumit & Green, Richard & Rosenblatt, Eric & Yao, Vincent W. & Zhang, Jian, 2018. "Gender difference and intra-household economic power in mortgage signing order," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 86-100.
    10. William Jergins, 2023. "Gender equity and the gender gap in STEM: is there really a paradox?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 3029-3056, October.
    11. Uri Gneezy & Alex Imas, 2016. "Lab in the Field: Measuring Preferences in the Wild," CESifo Working Paper Series 5953, CESifo.
    12. Goodall, Amanda H. & Osterloh, Margit, 2015. "Women Have to Enter the Leadership Race to Win: Using Random Selection to Increase the Supply of Women into Senior Positions," IZA Discussion Papers 9331, IZA Network @ LISER.
    13. BenYishay, Ariel & Grosjean, Pauline & Vecci, Joe, 2017. "The fish is the friend of matriliny: Reef density and matrilineal inheritance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 234-249.
    14. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2016. "Biology and Gender in the Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 10386, IZA Network @ LISER.
    15. Hannah Strauß & Peter Venables & Marcel Zentner, 2023. "Associations between early childhood poverty and cognitive functioning throughout childhood and adolescence: A 14-year prospective longitudinal analysis of the Mauritius Child Health Project," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(2), pages 1-20, February.
    16. Isphording, Ingo E. & Qendrai, Pamela, 2019. "Gender Differences in Student Dropout in STEM," IZA Research Reports 87, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Lowes, Sara, 2021. "Kinship structure, stress, and the gender gap in competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 36-57.
    18. Difang Huang & Zhengyang Bao, 2020. "Gender Differences in Reaction to Enforcement Mechanisms: A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment," Monash Economics Working Papers 08-20, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    19. Khadjavi, Menusch & Sipangule, Kacana & Thiele, Rainer, 2024. "Exposure to large-scale farms increases smallholders’ competitive behavior and closes the gender gap," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    20. Bedi, Arjun S. & Majilla, Tanmoy & Rieger, Matthias, 2018. "Gender Norms and the Motherhood Penalty: Experimental Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 11360, IZA Network @ LISER.

    More about this item

    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:feb:framed:00158. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Franco Daniel Albino (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    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.