The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Eva Ranehill. Photo.

Eva Ranehill

Professor

Eva Ranehill. Photo.

Gender differences in willingness to compete : The role of public observability

Author

  • Thomas Buser
  • Eva Ranehill
  • Roel van Veldhuizen

Summary, in English

A recent literature emphasizes that gender differences in the labor market may in part be driven by a gender gap in willingness to compete. However, whereas experiments in this literature typically investigate willingness to compete in private environments, real world competitions often have a more public nature, which introduces potential social image concerns. If such image concerns are important, and men and women differ in the degree to which they want to be seen as competitive, making tournament entry decisions publicly observable may further exacerbate the gender gap. We test this prediction using a laboratory experiment (N = 784) that varies the degree to which the decision to compete, and its outcome, is publicly observable. We find that public observability does not alter the magnitude of the gender gap in willingness to compete in an economically or statistically significant way.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2021

Language

English

Publication/Series

Journal of Economic Psychology

Volume

83

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Economics
  • Gender Studies

Keywords

  • Competitiveness
  • Experiment
  • Gender differences
  • Social image

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0167-4870