Gender, Competitiveness, and Socialization at a Young Age: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society

Steffen Andersen, Seda Ertac, Uri Gneezy, John List and Sandra Maximiano

Natural Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website

Abstract: Recent literature presents evidence that men are more competitively inclined than women. Since top-level careers usually require competitiveness, competitiveness differences provide an explanation for gender gaps in wages and differences in occupational choice. A natural question is whether women are born less competitive or whether they become so through the process of socialization. To pinpoint when in the socialization process the difference arises, we compare the competitiveness of children in matrilineal and patriarchal societies. We find that while there is no difference at any age in the matrilineal society, girls become less competitive around puberty in the patriarchal society.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (168)

Downloads: (external link)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00603.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Gender, Competitiveness, and Socialization at a Young Age: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:feb:natura:00603

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Natural Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Francesca Pagnotta ().