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Roel van Veldhuizen . Photo

Roel van Veldhuizen

Senior lecturer

Roel van Veldhuizen . Photo

Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions

Author

  • Stefano Piasenti
  • Marica Valente
  • Roel van Veldhuizen
  • Gregor Pfeifer

Summary, in English

How do men and women differ in their persistence after experiencing failure in a competitive environment? We tackle this question by combining a large online experiment (N=2,086) with machine learning. We find that when losing is unequivocally due to merit, both men and women exhibit a significant decrease in subsequent tournament entry. However, when the prior tournament is unfair, i.e., a loss is no longer necessarily based on merit, women are more discouraged than men. These results suggest that transparent meritocratic criteria may play a key role in preventing women from falling behind after experiencing a loss.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2023-08-14

Language

English

Publication/Series

Working Papers

Issue

2023:7

Document type

Working paper

Topic

  • Economics

Keywords

  • Competitiveness
  • Gender
  • Fairness
  • Machine learning
  • Online experiment
  • C14
  • C90
  • D91
  • J16

Status

Published