IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v124y2014i3p474-477.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do single-sex schools make girls more competitive?

Author

Listed:
  • Lee, Soohyung
  • Niederle, Muriel
  • Kang, Namwook

Abstract

We examine the effect of single-sex schooling on students’ competitiveness by studying middle school students in Seoul who were randomly assigned to either single-sex or coeducational schools within their school districts. Contrary to popular belief and existing studies, our results suggest that single-sex schooling does not reduce the gender gap in competitiveness conditional on student and parental characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Soohyung & Niederle, Muriel & Kang, Namwook, 2014. "Do single-sex schools make girls more competitive?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 474-477.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:124:y:2014:i:3:p:474-477
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.07.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176514002560
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2014.07.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jackson, C. Kirabo, 2012. "Single-sex schools, student achievement, and course selection: Evidence from rule-based student assignments in Trinidad and Tobago," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 173-187.
    2. Uri Gneezy & Kenneth L. Leonard & John A. List, 2009. "Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1637-1664, September.
    3. Booth, Alison & Nolen, Patrick, 2012. "Choosing to compete: How different are girls and boys?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 542-555.
    4. 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.
    5. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2011. "Gender and Competition," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 601-630, September.
    6. Hyunjoon Park & Jere Behrman & Jaesung Choi, 2013. "Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College Entrance Exams and College Attendance: Random Assignment in Seoul High Schools," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 447-469, April.
    7. Thomas Buser & Muriel Niederle & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2014. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Career Choices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1409-1447.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jørgensen, Lotte Kofoed & Piovesan, Marco & Willadsen, Helene, 2022. "Gender differences in competitiveness: Friends matter," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    2. Booth, Alison & Hayashi, Ryohei & Yamamura, Eiji, 2022. "Gender differences in tournament-performance over time in single-sex and mixed-sex environments," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Boneva, Teodora & Buser, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Kosse, Fabian, 2021. "The Origins of Gender Differences in Competitiveness and Earnings Expectations: Causal Evidence from a Mentoring Intervention," IZA Discussion Papers 14800, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Thomas Buser & Noemi Peter & Stefan C. Wolter, 2022. "Willingness to compete, gender and career choices along the whole ability distribution," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(5), pages 1299-1326, November.
    5. van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2022. "Gender Differences in Tournament Choices: Risk Preferences, Overconfidence or Competitiveness?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 1595-1618.
    6. Johnsen, Åshild A. & Finseraas, Henning & Hanson, Torbjørn & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2023. "The malleability of competitive preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    7. Pikos, Anna Katharina & Straub, Alexander, 2019. "Mind the absent gap: Gender-specific competitiveness in non-professional sports," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-652, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    8. Soohyung Lee & Lesley J. Turner & Seokjin Woo & Kyunghee Kim, 2014. "All or Nothing? The Impact of School and Classroom Gender Composition on Effort and Academic Achievement," NBER Working Papers 20722, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Lee, Youngju & Nakazawa, Nobuhiko, 2022. "Does single-sex schooling help or hurt labor market outcomes? Evidence from a natural experiment in South Korea," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    10. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Frank, Rachel & Huet-Vaughn, Emiliano, 2018. "Gender differences in interpersonal and intrapersonal competitive behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 170-176.
    11. Aurelie Dariel & Curtis Kephart & Nikos Nikiforakis & Christina Zenker, 2017. "Emirati women do not shy away from competition: evidence from a patriarchal society in transition," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 121-136, December.
    12. Muriel Niederle, 2014. "Gender," NBER Working Papers 20788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Siddique, Abu, 2024. "Behavioral consequences of religious schooling," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    14. Zhang, Peilu & Zhang, Yinjunjie & Palma, Marco A., 2024. "Social roles and competitiveness: My willingness to compete depends on who I am (supposed to be)," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 125-151.
    15. Klege, Rebecca Afua & Visser, Martine & Barron A, Manuel F. & Clarke, Rowan P., 2021. "Competition and gender in the lab vs field: Experiments from off-grid renewable energy entrepreneurs in Rural Rwanda," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    16. Klege, Rebecca A. & Visser, Martine, 2019. "Competition and Gender in the Lab vs. Field: Experiments with Off-Grid Renewable Energy Entrepreneurs in Rural Rwanda," EfD Discussion Paper 19-24, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    17. Aurélie Dariel & Nikos Nikiforakis & Jan Stoop, 2020. "Does selection bias cause us to overestimate gender differences in competitiveness?," Working Papers 20200046, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised May 2020.
    18. Abu Siddique, 2021. "Behavioral Consequences of Religious Education," Munich Papers in Political Economy 10, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    19. Aurelie Dariel & Nikos Nikiforakis & Jan Stoop, 2022. "Competition, Selection Bias and Gender Differences Among Economics Majors," Working Papers 20220074, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jan 2022.
    20. Choi, Jaesung & Park, Hyunjoon & Behrman, Jere R., 2015. "Separating boys and girls and increasing weight? Assessing the impacts of single-sex schools through random assignment in Seoul," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 1-11.
    21. Anna Katharina Pikos & Alexander Straub, 2020. "Mind the Absent Gap: Gender-Specific Competitive Behavior in Nonprofessional Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(3), pages 215-233, April.

    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. John, June Park, 2017. "Gender differences and the effect of facing harder competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 201-222.
    2. Eber, Nicolas & François, Abel & Weill, Laurent, 2021. "Gender, age, and attitude toward competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 668-690.
    3. Johnsen, Åshild A. & Finseraas, Henning & Hanson, Torbjørn & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2023. "The malleability of competitive preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Kjell G. Salvanes & Erik Ø. Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2016. "Willingness to Compete: Family Matters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(8), pages 2149-2162, August.
    5. Jana Cahlíková & Lubomír Cingl & Ian Levely, 2020. "How Stress Affects Performance and Competitiveness Across Gender," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(8), pages 3295-3310, August.
    6. José De Sousa & Guillaume Hollard, 2023. "From Micro to Macro Gender Differences: Evidence from Field Tournaments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3358-3399, June.
    7. 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.
    8. Ernesto Reuben & Matthew Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2017. "Preferences and Biases in Educational Choices and Labour Market Expectations: Shrinking the Black Box of Gender," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(604), pages 2153-2186, September.
    9. Cueva, Carlos & Rustichini, Aldo, 2015. "Is financial instability male-driven? Gender and cognitive skills in experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 330-344.
    10. Hoyer, Britta & van Huizen, Thomas & Keijzer, Linda & Rezaei, Sarah & Rosenkranz, Stephanie & Westbrock, Bastian, 2020. "Gender, competitiveness, and task difficulty: Evidence from the field," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    11. Flory, Jeffrey A. & Gneezy, Uri & Leonard, Kenneth L. & List, John A., 2018. "Gender, age, and competition: A disappearing gap?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 256-276.
    12. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Frank, Rachel & Huet-Vaughn, Emiliano, 2018. "Gender differences in interpersonal and intrapersonal competitive behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 170-176.
    13. Ernesto Reuben & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2024. "Overconfidence and Preferences for Competition," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(2), pages 1087-1121, April.
    14. Booth, Alison & Lee, Jungmin, 2021. "Girls’ and boys’ performance in competitions: What we can learn from a Korean quiz show," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 431-447.
    15. Jeworrek, Sabrina, 2019. "Gender stereotypes still in MIND: Information on relative performance and competition entry," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    16. Lovász, Anna & Bat-Erdene, Boldmaa & Cukrowska-Torzewska, Ewa & Rigó, Mariann & Szabó-Morvai, Ágnes, 2023. "Competition, subjective feedback, and gender gaps in performance," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    17. Cassar, Alessandra & Zhang, Y. Jane, 2022. "The competitive woman: Evolutionary insights and cross-cultural evidence into finding the Femina Economica," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 447-471.
    18. Jeworrek, Sabrina, 2016. "Competition Entry and Relative Performance Feedback: The Importance of Information Disaggregated by Gender," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145859, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Buser, Thomas & van den Assem, Martijn J. & van Dolder, Dennie, 2023. "Gender and willingness to compete for high stakes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 350-370.
    20. Nathan Barrymore & Cristian L. Dezső & Benjamin C. King, 2022. "Gender and competitiveness when earning for others: Experimental evidence and implications for sponsorship," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 905-934, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Single-sex schools; Sex ratio; Competitiveness; Gender gap; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

    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:eee:ecolet:v:124:y:2014:i:3:p:474-477. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.