Tournaments with safeguards: A blessing or a curse for women?

Zhengyang Bao and Andreas Leibbrandt

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 221, issue C, 292-306

Abstract: Workplace tournaments are one likely contributor to gender differences in labor market outcomes. We investigate a competitive workplace environment that may produce more gender-neutral outcomes: tournaments with safeguards. In our experiment, participants take part in a tournament with a real-effort task and choose whether they want to have a complementary safeguard that guarantees a higher wage for the low ranked. As expected, we find that women are more likely than men to choose such a safeguard. However, obtaining a safeguard comes at a cost. On average, the safeguard causes lower performance, reduces women's relative performance, and creates a gender wage gap. Thus, we provide novel evidence that easing women into tournaments can backfire.

Keywords: Gender differences; Workplace tournaments; Incentive contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 J16 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Related works:
Working Paper: Tournaments with Safeguards: A Blessing or a Curse for Women (2020)
Working Paper: Tournaments with Safeguards: A Blessing or a Curse for Women? (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:221:y:2024:i:c:p:292-306

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.07.022

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