Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance,
Stockholm School of Economics

No 734: In Bloom: Gender Differences in Preferences among Adolescents

Anna Dreber (), Emma von Essen () and Eva Ranehill ()
Additional contact information
Anna Dreber: Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Postal: Sveavägen 65, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
Emma von Essen: Department of Economics, Stockholm University, Postal: 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Eva Ranehill: Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Postal: P.O. Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: We look at gender differences among adolescents in Sweden in preferences for altruism, risk and competition. We find that girls are more altruistic and less risk taking than boys. No gender differences are found comparing competitive performance with non-competitive performance in either a verbal or a mathematical task. Boys and girls are also equally likely to self-select into competition in the verbal task, but boys are significantly more likely to choose to compete in math. However, this gender gap diminishes and becomes non-significant when we control for performance beliefs relative to others, indicating that some of the gender gap in our sample is not due to preferences for competition per se.

Keywords: competitiveness; risk preferences; altruism; adolescents; gender differences; experiment

JEL-codes: C91; D03; J16

17 pages, First version: April 6, 2011. Revised: July 12, 2012. Earlier revisions: June 27, 2012, June 27, 2012.

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