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Gender, risk preferences and willingness to compete in a random sample of the Swedish population

Boschini, Anne ; Dreber, Anna ; von Essen, Emma ; Muren, Astri and Ranehill, Eva LU (2019) In Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 83.
Abstract
Experimental results from student and other non-representative convenience samples often suggest that men, on average, are more risk taking and competitive than women. We explore whether these gender preference gaps also exist in incentivized tasks in a simple random sample of the Swedish adult population. Our design comprises four different conditions to systematically explore how the experimental context may impact gender gaps; a baseline condition, a condition where participants are primed with their own gender, and two conditions where the participants know the gender of their counterpart (man or woman). We further look at competitiveness in two domains: a math task and a verbal task. We find no gender gap in risk taking or... (More)
Experimental results from student and other non-representative convenience samples often suggest that men, on average, are more risk taking and competitive than women. We explore whether these gender preference gaps also exist in incentivized tasks in a simple random sample of the Swedish adult population. Our design comprises four different conditions to systematically explore how the experimental context may impact gender gaps; a baseline condition, a condition where participants are primed with their own gender, and two conditions where the participants know the gender of their counterpart (man or woman). We further look at competitiveness in two domains: a math task and a verbal task. We find no gender gap in risk taking or competitiveness in the verbal task in this random sample. There is some support for men being more competitive than women in the math task in the pooled sample, but the effect size is small. We further find no consistent impact of the respective conditions on (the absence of) the gender gap in preferences. (Less)
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author
; ; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics
volume
83
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85072599976
ISSN
2214-8043
DOI
10.1016/j.socec.2019.101467
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
5256fcfa-ef7e-4d86-81bf-6ccb54055d94
date added to LUP
2025-03-31 15:34:19
date last changed
2025-04-04 15:06:59
@article{5256fcfa-ef7e-4d86-81bf-6ccb54055d94,
  abstract     = {{Experimental results from student and other non-representative convenience samples often suggest that men, on average, are more risk taking and competitive than women. We explore whether these gender preference gaps also exist in incentivized tasks in a simple random sample of the Swedish adult population. Our design comprises four different conditions to systematically explore how the experimental context may impact gender gaps; a baseline condition, a condition where participants are primed with their own gender, and two conditions where the participants know the gender of their counterpart (man or woman). We further look at competitiveness in two domains: a math task and a verbal task. We find no gender gap in risk taking or competitiveness in the verbal task in this random sample. There is some support for men being more competitive than women in the math task in the pooled sample, but the effect size is small. We further find no consistent impact of the respective conditions on (the absence of) the gender gap in preferences.}},
  author       = {{Boschini, Anne and Dreber, Anna and von Essen, Emma and Muren, Astri and Ranehill, Eva}},
  issn         = {{2214-8043}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{12}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics}},
  title        = {{Gender, risk preferences and willingness to compete in a random sample of the Swedish population}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2019.101467}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.socec.2019.101467}},
  volume       = {{83}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}