Gender Quotas, Competitions, and Peer Review: Experimental Evidence on the Backlash Against Women

Andreas Leibbrandt, Liang Wang and Cordelia Foo

No 5526, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This study experimentally investigates gender quotas in light of peer review. We investigate competitions with and without gender quotas and a peer review process that allows for sabotage. Our findings show that the possibility of peer sabotage renders the gender quota ineffective in encouraging women to enter tournaments and reversing gender pay gaps. Moreover, we provide evidence of a severe backlash against women, as they become targets of sabotage under gender quotas. Interestingly, this is the result of women focusing on sabotaging each other while men sabotage indiscriminately. Our results have implications for the use of quotas to mitigate the under-representation and underperformance of minority groups in environments in which peer sabotage is possible.

Keywords: affirmative action; gender quota; gender gap; labor market; sabotage; competition; tournament (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 J23 J33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5526

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