Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Papers,
Lund University, Department of Economics
No 2023:7: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions
Stefano Piasenti (), Marica Valente (), Roel Van Veldhuizen () and Gregor Pfeifer ()
Additional contact information
Stefano Piasenti: Humboldt University
Marica Valente: University of Innsbruck
Roel Van Veldhuizen: Department of Economics, Lund University, Postal: School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden
Gregor Pfeifer: University of Sydney
Abstract: 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.
Keywords: Competitiveness; Gender; Fairness; Machine learning; Online experiment
Language: English
53 pages, August 14, 2023
Full text files
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