Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Papers in Economics,
University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

No 766: Gender Differences in Competitiveness: Experimental Evidence from China

Fredrik Carlsson (), Elina Lampi (), Peter Martinsson () and Xiaojun Yang
Additional contact information
Fredrik Carlsson: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Elina Lampi: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Peter Martinsson: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Xiaojun Yang: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

Abstract: Experimental evidence from both the lab and the field shows that women on average have a lower propensity to enter a competitive environment. In this paper, we investigate gender differences in competitiveness using a lab-in-the-field experiment and a subject pool consisting of Chinese adults. China provides an interesting environment to study in this regard since the country has promoted gender equality for a long time and the gender gap in earnings is small in a cross-country comparison. However, in many respects, China is still a patriarchal society. Our experimental results show that women perform equally well as men in a piece-rate task and significantly better in a competitive payment environment. Despite this, men are more than twice as likely to voluntarily choose a competitive environment. This gender difference cannot be explained by differences in risk preferences or overconfidence.

Keywords: Competition; Gender Difference; Experiments; China

JEL-codes: C91; D03; D10; I31; P30

21 pages, June 2019

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