IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iza/izawol/journl2022n100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender differences in risk attitudes

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Filippin

    (University of Milan, Italy, and IZA, Germany)

Abstract

Many experimental studies and surveys have shown that women consistently display more risk-averse behavior than men when confronted with decisions involving risk. These differences in risk preferences, when combined with gender differences in other behavioral traits, such as fondness for competition, have been used to explain important phenomena in labor and financial markets. Recent evidence has challenged this consensus, however, finding gender differences in risk attitudes to be smaller than previously thought and showing greater variation of results depending on the method used to measure risk aversion.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Filippin, 2022. "Gender differences in risk attitudes," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 100-100, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:2022:n:100
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/100/pdfs/gender-differences-in-risk-attitudes.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://wol.iza.org/articles/gender-differences-in-risk-attitudes
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Filippin, Antonio & Crosetto, Paolo, 2014. "A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 8184, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2002. "Sex Differences and Statistical Stereotyping in Attitudes Toward Financial Risk," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-03, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    3. Julie A. Nelson, 2016. "Not-So-Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Risk Taking," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 114-142, April.
    4. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    5. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 5.
    6. Paolo Crosetto & Antonio Filippin, 2013. "The “bomb” risk elicitation task," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 31-65, August.
    7. Alison L. Booth & Patrick Nolen, 2012. "Gender differences in risk behaviour: does nurture matter?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(558), pages 56-78, February.
    8. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    9. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    10. Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Arthur van Soest & Erik Wengstrom, 2011. "Heterogeneity in Risky Choice Behavior in a Broad Population," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 664-694, April.
    11. Altonji, Joseph G. & Blank, Rebecca M., 1999. "Race and gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 48, pages 3143-3259, Elsevier.
    12. Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Arthur van Soest & Erik Wengstrom, 2011. "Heterogeneity in Risky Choice Behavior in a Broad Population," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 664-694, April.
    13. Uri Gneezy & Jan Potters, 1997. "An Experiment on Risk Taking and Evaluation Periods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 631-645.
    14. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    15. Cho, In Soo, 2011. "Do Gender Differences in Risk Preferences Explain Gender Differences in Labor Supply, Earnings or Occupational Choice?," Staff General Research Papers Archive 34651, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    16. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3143-3259 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    18. Gary Charness & Catherine Eckel & Uri Gneezy & Agne Kajackaite, 2018. "Complexity in risk elicitation may affect the conclusions: A demonstration using gender differences," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 1-17, February.
    19. Antonio Filippin & Paolo Crosetto, 2016. "A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3138-3160, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Drupp, Moritz A. & Khadjavi, Menusch & Riekhof, Marie-Catherine & Voss, Rudi, 2020. "Professional identity and the gender gap in risk-taking. Evidence from field experiments with scientists," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 418-432.
    2. Crosetto, P. & Filippin, A., 2017. "Safe options induce gender differences in risk attitudes," Working Papers 2017-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    3. Paolo Crosetto & Antonio Filippin, 2023. "Safe options and gender differences in risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 66(1), pages 19-46, February.
    4. Ulf Rinne & Hendrik Sonnabend, 2022. "Female workers, male managers: Gender, leadership, and risk‐taking," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(3), pages 906-930, January.
    5. Catherine Eckel & Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2021. "The gender leadership gap: insights from experiments," Chapters, in: Ananish Chaudhuri (ed.), A Research Agenda for Experimental Economics, chapter 7, pages 137-162, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Horn, Dániel & Kiss, Hubert János & Lénárd, Tünde, 2022. "Gender differences in preferences of adolescents: Evidence from a large-scale classroom experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 478-522.
    7. Markowsky, Eva & Beblo, Miriam, 2022. "When do we observe a gender gap in competition entry? A meta-analysis of the experimental literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 139-163.
    8. Andreas Pondorfer & Toman Barsbai & Ulrich Schmidt, 2017. "Gender Differences in Stereotypes of Risk Preferences: Experimental Evidence from a Matrilineal and a Patrilineal Society," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3268-3284, October.
    9. Ranganathan, Kavitha & Lejarraga, Tomás, 2021. "Elicitation of risk preferences through satisficing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    10. Andreoni, James & Di Girolamo, Amalia & List, John A. & Mackevicius, Claire & Samek, Anya, 2020. "Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 729-742.
    11. Ranoua Bouchouicha & Lachlan Deer & Ashraf Galal Eid & Peter McGee & Daniel Schoch & Hrvoje Stojic & Jolanda Ygosse-Battisti & Ferdinand M. Vieider, 2019. "Gender effects for loss aversion: Yes, no, maybe?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 171-184, October.
    12. Antonio FILIPPIN & Paolo CROSETTO, 2014. "A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," Departmental Working Papers 2014-01, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    13. Pau Balart & Lara Ezquerra & Iñigo Hernandez-Arenaz, 2022. "Framing effects on risk-taking behavior: evidence from a field experiment in multiple-choice tests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1268-1297, September.
    14. Holden, Stein T. & Tilahun, Mesfin, 2022. "Are risk preferences explaining gender differences in investment behavior?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Anwesha Bandyopadhyay & Lutfunnahar Begum & Philip J. Grossman, 2021. "Gender differences in the stability of risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 169-201, October.
    16. Silvia Saccardo & Aniela Pietrasz & Uri Gneezy, 2018. "On the Size of the Gender Difference in Competitiveness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1541-1554, April.
    17. Boschini, Anne & Dreber, Anna & von Essen, Emma & Muren, Astri & Ranehill, Eva, 2019. "Gender, risk preferences and willingness to compete in a random sample of the Swedish population✰," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    18. Perodaud, Maxime & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Yamada, Takashi, 2022. "An experimental analysis of gender discrimination in a credence goods market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    19. Bougherara, Douadia & Friesen, Lana & Nauges, Céline, 2022. "Risk-taking and skewness-seeking behavior in a demographically diverse population," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 83-104.
    20. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Imas, Alex, 2013. "Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 43-51.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    risk aversion; gender gap; risk elicitation methods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:2022:n:100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.