Gender differentiation in risk-taking behavior: On the relative risk aversion of single men and single women

Oded Stark and Ewa Zawojska

No 88, University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics from University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics

Abstract: We relate an observed difference between single men (SM) and single women (SW) in attitudes towards risk to the higher value assigned to social status by SM than by SW. In the marriage market, low status carries a harsher penalty for SM than for SW because when selecting a partner, the social status of a man is more important to a woman than the social status of a woman is to a man. Correlating social status with relative wealth, we show how intensified distaste at experiencing low relative wealth reduces relative risk aversion.

Keywords: Risk-taking behavior; Gender-based difference in risk aversion; Relative wealth deprivation; Social status; Marriage market outcome (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D81 G11 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/122302/1/839140541.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Gender differentiation in risk-taking behavior: On the relative risk aversion of single men and single women (2015)
Working Paper: Gender differentiation in risk-taking behavior: On the relative risk aversion of single men and single women (2015)
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:zbw:tuewef:88

DOI: 10.15496/publikation-7705

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics from University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().