Replication: Do women shy away from competition? Experimental evidence from China

• We investigate gender differences in competitiveness using a lab-in-the-field experiment and a subject pool consisting of Chinese adults following the design by Niederle and Vesterlund (2007). China provides an interesting environment to study since the country has promoted gender equality for a long time and the gender gap in earnings is small in cross-country comparisons. However, in many respects, China is still a patriarchal society. Our results show that women perform equally well as men in a piece-rate task and significantly better in a competitive payment environment. Despite this, men are more than twice as likely to choose a competitive environment. This gender difference cannot be explained by differences in confidence or risk preferences.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

China

Competition

Experiments

Gender difference

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)