Gender, competition and the efficiency of policy interventions

Arbeitspapier

Recent research has shown that women shy away from competition more often than men. We evaluate experimentally three alternative policy interventions to promote women in competitions: Quotas, Preferential Treatment, and Repetition of the Competition unless a critical number of female winners is reached. We find that Quotas and Preferential Treatment encourage women to compete significantly more often than in a control treatment, while efficiency in selecting the best candidates as winners is not worse. The level of cooperation in a post-competition teamwork task is even higher with successful policy interventions. Hence, policy measures promoting women can have a double dividend.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 4955

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
• Subject: Competition ; gender gap ; experiment ; affirmative action ; teamwork ; coordination ; Verhaltensökonomik ; Wettbewerb ; Geschlecht ; Frauenpolitik ; Gruppenarbeit ; Test

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Balafoutas, Loukas ; Sutter, Matthias
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2010

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/36894
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET