Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions

Stefano Piasenti, Marica Valente, Roel van Veldhuizen, Gregor Pfeifer and Gregor-Gabriel Pfeifer
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Gregor Pfeifer

No 10572, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: How do men and women differ in their persistence after experiencing failure in a competitive environment? We tackle this question by combining a large online experiment (N=2,086) with machine learning. We find that when losing is unequivocally due to merit, both men and women exhibit a significant decrease in subsequent tournament entry. However, when the prior tournament is unfair, i.e., a loss is no longer necessarily based on merit, women are more discouraged than men. These results suggest that transparent meritocratic criteria may play a key role in preventing women from falling behind after experiencing a loss.

Keywords: competitiveness; gender; fairness; machine learning; online experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C90 D91 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-spo
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Related works:
Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023)
Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023)
Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023)
Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023)
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