TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Gill, David
AU  - Prowse, Victoria L.
        TI  - Gender Differences and Dynamics in Competition: The Role of Luck
        PY  - 2010/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 5022
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp5022
        AB  - We present experimental evidence which sheds new light on why women may be less competitive than men. Specifically, we observe striking differences in how men and women respond to good and bad luck in a competitive environment. Following a loss, women tend to reduce effort, and the effect is independent of the monetary value of the prize that the women failed to win. Men, on the other hand, reduce effort only after failing to win large prizes. Responses to previous competitive outcomes explain about 11% of the variation that we observe in women's efforts, but only about 4% of the variation in the effort of men, and differential responses to luck account for about half of the gender performance gap in our experiment. These findings help to explain both female underperformance in environments with repeated competition and the tendency for women to select into tournaments at a lower rate than men.
        KW  - competition aversion
KW  - competition
KW  - gender gap
KW  - gender differences
KW  - real effort experiment
KW  - behavioral preferences
KW  - tournament
KW  - luck
KW  - win
KW  - loss
KW  - narrow framing
        ER  -