Seminar on Gender "Role of Advantages of the Gender Gap in Competitiveness"

The next session of the seminar « Gender, Behavior and Decision-Making » will take place Tuesday the 14th of November from 5 pm to 6 pm online (Teams). The Teams link will be provided in due time. 

We will have the pleasure to listen to Beatrice Braut who will present :

“The Role of Advantages in Shaping the Gender Gap in Competitiveness - an Experiment”
 

Registration
 

Beatrice Braut is assistant professor at the University of Genoa. Her research analyses behaviour relative to ethical and health choices and studies the determinants of gender differences. She uses experimental methods and has experience in running laboratory, online and field experiments 

Abstract
 

Gender differences in competitive choices can be important in explaining the gender gap. Findings reveal that men choose competitive settings more than women and withstand competitive pressure better. While real-life competition happens with subjects having different jobs, the preferences for competition have been studied uniquely in standardized and repetitive tasks. This paper tests if being in an advantaged work position alters the willingness to compete. If men and women differ in their confidence, knowing to be in an advantaged position should push more the less confident. In the experiment, subjects are allocated to a dictator-like and a respondent-like role and they compete in their ability to obtain more in the bargaining. Importantly, they compete with subjects in the same role therefore the advantage does not alter the probability of winning but acts as priming. Results reveal that the gender gap in competitiveness is present only for the subjects allocated to the disadvantaged side of the bargain, while between advantaged the willingness to compete does not differ by gender. This evidence provides further evidence that the gender gap in competitiveness critically depends on the setting and indicates that it is prevalent when subjects feel disadvantaged, like in the early phases of their careers or in low-level jobs. 

About the Women & Science Chair
 

The Women and Science Chair at Université Paris Dauphine - PSL, created with the support of the L’Oréal Foundation, the Generali Foundation, La Poste, and the Talan Group, seeks to engage and foster interdisciplinary approaches to analyzing the causes and consequences of the underrepresentation of women in careers in scientific research and academia.

The Women and Science Chair is member of the UNESCO chairs network.

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