Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France

Clement Bosquet, Pierre-Philippe Combes and Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa ()

No 1351, AMSE Working Papers from Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France

Abstract: Differences in promotion across genders are still prevalent in many occupations. Recent work based on experimental evidence indicates that women participate less in or exert lower effort during contests. We exploit the unique features of the promotion system for French academics to look at women's attitudes towards competition in an actual labour market. Using data for academic economists over the period 1991-2008 we find that, conditional on entering the competition, there is no difference in promotions across the genders, which is diffcult to reconcile with either discrimination or a poorer performance of women in contests. In contrast, women have a substantially lower probability than men to enter the promotion contest. Our data does not support that this gap is due to differences in costs or in preferences concerning department prestige, indicating that women are less willing than men to take part in contests.

Keywords: gender gaps; promotions; academic labour markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2013-10-15, Revised 2013-10-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-sog
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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http://www.amse-aixmarseille.fr/sites/default/files/_dt/2012/wp_2013_-_nr_51.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France (2013)
Working Paper: Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France (2013)
Working Paper: Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France (2013)
Working Paper: Gender and competition: evidence from academic promotions in France (2013)
Working Paper: Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France (2013)
Working Paper: Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France (2013)
Working Paper: Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France (2013)
Working Paper: Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1351

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