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Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions

Stefano Piasenti (), Marica Valente, Roel Van Veldhuizen () and Gregor Pfeifer
Additional contact information
Stefano Piasenti: Humboldt University
Roel Van Veldhuizen: Department of Economics, Lund University, Postal: School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden

No 2023:7, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

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)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2023-08-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-exp, nep-lab and nep-spo
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Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions (2023) Downloads
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