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Gender matching and competitiveness: experimental evidence

Author Info

  • Nabanita Datta Gupta

    (Danish National Institute of Social Research - Danish National Institute of Social Research)

  • Anders Poulsen

    (School of economics - University of East Anglia)

  • Marie Claire Villeval

    ()

    (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Etienne - PRES Université de Lyon - CNRS)

Abstract

This paper experimentally investigates if and how people's competitiveness depends on their own gender and on the gender of people with whom they interact. Participants are given information about the gender of the co-participant they are matched with, they then choose between a tournament or a piece rate payment scheme, and finally perform a real task. As already observed in the literature, we find that significantly more men than women choose the tournament. The gender of the co-participant directly influences men's choices (men compete less against other men than against women), but only when the gender information is made sufficiently salient. A higher predicted competitiveness of women induces more competition. Giving stronger tournament incentives, or allowing the participants to choose the gender of their co-participant, increases women's willingness to compete, but does not close the gender gap in competitiveness.

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File URL: https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00661770/document
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Paper provided by HAL in its series Post-Print with number halshs-00661770.

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Date of creation: 2013
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published in Economic Inquiry, Wiley, 2013, 51 (1), pp. 816-835
Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00661770
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00661770
Contact details of provider: Web page: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/

Keywords: Competition; gender; tournament; piece rate; matching; experiment;

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