Is Being Competitive Always an Advantage? Degrees of Competitiveness, Gender, and Premature Work Contract Termination

Samuel Lüthi () and Stefan Wolter

No 14675, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this study, we examine the influence of competitiveness on the stability of labour relations using the example of premature employment and training contract termination in the apprenticeship education sector. The paper extends the small but growing evidence on the external relevance of competitiveness by analysing gender differences in the correlation between competitiveness and labour market success and whether these effects depend on how the students' propensity to compete is measured. By matching a large experimental dataset with administrative data identifying contract terminations, we find that both gender and test specification matter. While competitive men assigned to a difficult competitiveness task are less likely to drop out of the contract than non competitive men, there is no such effect observable for those assigned to the easier task. On the other hand, competitive women are more likely to drop out than non competitive women, irrespective of how competitiveness is measured.

Keywords: competitiveness; non-cognitive skills; gender; apprenticeship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2021-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hrm, nep-isf and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Labour Economics, 2023, 85, 102457

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Related works:
Working Paper: Is Being Competitive Always an Advantage? Degrees of Competitiveness, Gender, and Premature Work Contract Termination (2021)
Working Paper: Is being competitive always an advantage? Degrees of competitiveness, gender, and premature work contract termination (2021)
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