IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cra/wpaper/2020-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Women Shy Away From Competition – How To Overcome It

Author

Listed:
  • Amanda Goodall
  • Margit Osterloh
  • Mandy Fong

Abstract

Women remain underrepresented at the upper echelons. An aversion to competition has been suggested as a factor that discourages women from applying for top jobs. This paper reviews the research showing that high-ability females compete less than males. We develop a theoretical approach to explore why there are gender differences in competitive behaviours and identify flaws in the current recruitment methods, which constrain the supply of qualified candidates. On this basis, we discuss two policy implications that may mitigate competitiveness and thereby motivate high-ability women to apply for leadership positions. The first is quotas. Next we introduce an innovative tool that has a long yet little-known history - focussed random selection from a pre-chosen pool of candidates. We suggest this as a way to contribute to closing the gender gap in competitiveness and enlarging the pool of high-performing women applying for top jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Amanda Goodall & Margit Osterloh & Mandy Fong, 2020. "Women Shy Away From Competition – How To Overcome It," CREMA Working Paper Series 2020-21, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    • Handle: RePEc:cra:wpaper:2020-21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.crema-research.ch/papers/2020-21.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.crema-research.ch/abstracts/2020-21.htm
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey A. Flory & Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2015. "Do Competitive Workplaces Deter Female Workers? A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment on Job Entry Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 122-155.
    2. Benjamin Artz & Amanda H. Goodall & Andrew J. Oswald, 2018. "Do Women Ask?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 611-636, October.
    3. Olle Folke & Johanna Rickne, 2020. "All the Single Ladies: Job Promotions and the Durability of Marriage," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 260-287, January.
    4. Laura Hospido & Luc Laeven & Ana Lamo, 2022. "The Gender Promotion Gap: Evidence from Central Banking," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(5), pages 981-996, December.
    5. Thomas Buser & Huaiping Yuan, 2019. "Do Women Give Up Competing More Easily? Evidence from the Lab and the Dutch Math Olympiad," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 225-252, July.
    6. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    7. Kenneth R. Ahern & Amy K. Dittmar, 2012. "The Changing of the Boards: The Impact on Firm Valuation of Mandated Female Board Representation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 137-197.
    8. Lamo, Ana & Laeven, Luc, 2019. "The gender promotion gap: what holds back female economists from making a career in central banking?," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 63.
    9. 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.
    10. repec:ces:ifodic:v:15:y:2017:i:2:p:19337559 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:ces:ifodic:v:15:y:2017:i:2:p:26-30 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2010. "Explaining the Gender Gap in Math Test Scores: The Role of Competition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 129-144, Spring.
    15. Bäker, Agnes & Goodall, Amanda H., 2020. "Feline followers and “umbrella carriers”: Department Chairs’ influence on faculty job satisfaction and quit intentions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(4).
    16. Steffen Andersen & Seda Ertac & Uri Gneezy & John A. List & Sandra Maximiano, 2013. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Socialization at a Young Age: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1438-1443, October.
    17. Riener, Gerhard & Wagner, Valentin, 2018. "Gender differences in willingness to compete and answering multiple-choice questions—The role of age," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 86-89.
    18. Goodall, Amanda H., 2011. "Physician-leaders and hospital performance: Is there an association?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(4), pages 535-539, August.
    19. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2010. "An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap in Mathematics," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 210-240, April.
    20. Thomas Buser & Noemi Peter & Stefan Wolter, 2017. "Gender, willingness to compete and career choices along the whole ability distribution," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0135, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    21. Muriel Niederle, 2017. "A Gender Agenda: A Progress Report on Competitiveness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 115-119, May.
    22. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    23. Jeffrey A. Flory & Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2010. "Do Competitive Work Places Deter Female Workers? A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment on Gender Differences in Job-Entry Decisions," NBER Working Papers 16546, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Anna Dreber & Emma Essen & Eva Ranehill, 2014. "Gender and competition in adolescence: task matters," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 154-172, March.
    25. Victor A. Ginsburgh & Jan C. van Ours, 2003. "Expert Opinion and Compensation: Evidence from a Musical Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 289-296, March.
    26. Timothy Besley & Olle Folke & Torsten Persson & Johanna Rickne, 2017. "Gender Quotas and the Crisis of the Mediocre Man: Theory and Evidence from Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2204-2242, August.
    27. Cristian L. Dezsö & David Gaddis Ross, 2012. "Does female representation in top management improve firm performance? A panel data investigation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(9), pages 1072-1089, September.
    28. Kristin Kanthak & Jonathan Woon, 2015. "Women Don't Run?Election Aversion and Candidate Entry," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(3), pages 595-612, July.
    29. Muriel Niederle & Carmit Segal & Lise Vesterlund, 2013. "How Costly Is Diversity? Affirmative Action in Light of Gender Differences in Competitiveness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 1-16, May.
    30. Marianne Bertrand & Emir Kamenica & Jessica Pan, 2015. "Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 571-614.
    31. Anja Roth & Michaela Slotwinski, 2018. "Gender Norms and Income Misreporting within Households," CESifo Working Paper Series 7298, CESifo.
    32. Norma Burow & Miriam Beblo & Denis Beninger & Melanie Schröder, 2017. "Why Do Women Favor Same-Gender Competition? Evidence from a Choice Experiment," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1662, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    33. David Cuberes & Marc Teignier, 2016. "Aggregate Effects of Gender Gaps in the Labor Market: A Quantitative Estimate," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32.
    34. Cecilia Rouse & Claudia Goldin, 2000. "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 715-741, September.
    35. Pluchino, Alessandro & Rapisarda, Andrea & Garofalo, Cesare, 2010. "The Peter principle revisited: A computational study," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(3), pages 467-472.
    36. Thomas Buser, 2016. "The Impact of Losing in a Competition on the Willingness to Seek Further Challenges," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3439-3449, December.
    37. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Alyson Byrne & Julian Barling, 2017. "When She Brings Home the Job Status: Wives’ Job Status, Status Leakage, and Marital Instability," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 177-192, April.
    39. Andreas Leibbrandt & Liang Choon Wang & Cordelia Foo, 2018. "Gender Quotas, Competitions, and Peer Review: Experimental Evidence on the Backlash Against Women," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3501-3516, August.
    40. 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.
    41. M. Teresa Cardador, 2017. "Promoted Up But Also Out? The Unintended Consequences of Increasing Women’s Representation in Managerial Roles in Engineering," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 597-617, August.
    42. Eva Ranehill & Niklas Zethraeus & Liselott Blomberg & Bo von Schoultz & Angelica Lindén Hirschberg & Magnus Johannesson & Anna Dreber, 2018. "Hormonal Contraceptives Do Not Impact Economic Preferences: Evidence from a Randomized Trial," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(10), pages 4515-4532, October.
    43. Leonardo Bursztyn & Thomas Fujiwara & Amanda Pallais, 2017. "'Acting Wife': Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3288-3319, November.
    44. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2015. "Discrimination against migrants in Austria An experimental study," Economics working papers 2015-01, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    45. Marianne Bertrand & Dolly Chugh & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2005. "Implicit Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 94-98, May.
    46. Osterloh, Margit & Frey, Bruno S., 2020. "How to avoid borrowed plumes in academia," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1).
    47. Peter Stolz, 1986. "Parteienwettbewerb, politisches Kartell und Tausch zwischen sozioökonomischen Gruppen," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 122(IV), pages 657-675, December.
    48. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    49. Marianne Bertrand, 2020. "Gender in the Twenty-First Century," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 1-24, May.
    50. Isabel Fernandez-Mateo & Sarah Kaplan, 2018. "Gender and Organization Science: Introduction to a Virtual Special Issue," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1229-1236, December.
    51. Kamas, Linda & Preston, Anne, 2012. "The importance of being confident; gender, career choice, and willingness to compete," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 82-97.
    52. Osterloh, Margit & Frey, Bruno S., 2019. "Dealing With Randomness," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 30(4), pages 331-345.
    53. Edward P. Lazear, 2004. "The Peter Principle: A Theory of Decline," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 141-163, February.
    54. Matthias Sutter & Daniela Glätzle-Rützler & Loukas Balafoutas & Simon Czermak, 2016. "Cancelling out early age gender differences in competition: an analysis of policy interventions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 412-432, June.
    55. Paola Profeta, 2017. "Gender Quotas and Efficiency," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(02), pages 26-30, August.
    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. Goodall, Amanda H. & Osterloh, Margit, 2015. "Women Have to Enter the Leadership Race to Win: Using Random Selection to Increase the Supply of Women into Senior Positions," IZA Discussion Papers 9331, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. 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.
    4. 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).
    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. Baier, Alexandra & Davis, Brent & Jaber-Lopez, Tarek, 2024. "Gender, choice of task, and the effect of feedback on competition: An experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    7. 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).
    8. 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.
    9. Charness, Gary & Dao, Lien & Shurchkov, Olga, 2022. "Competing now and then: The effects of delay on competitiveness across gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 612-630.
    10. Buser, Thomas & Ranehill, Eva & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2021. "Gender differences in willingness to compete: The role of public observability," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    11. Helena Fornwagner & Monika Pompeo & Nina Serdarevic, 2023. "Choosing Competition on Behalf of Someone Else," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1555-1574, March.
    12. 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).
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Almås, Ingvild & Berge, Lars Ivar & Bjorvatn, Kjetil & Somville, Vincent & Tungodden, Bertil, 2020. "Adverse selection into competition: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment in Tanzania," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 19/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    17. 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).
    18. Fang,Sheng & Goh,Chorching & Roberts,Mark & Xu,L. Colin & Zeufack,Albert G., 2020. "Female Business Leaders, Business and Cultural Environment, and Productivity around the World," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9275, The World Bank.
    19. Zhang, Peilu & Zhang, Yinjunjie & Palma, Marco, 2018. "Social Norms and Competitiveness: My Willingness to Compete Depends on Who I am (supposed to be)," MPRA Paper 89727, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. 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.

    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:cra:wpaper:2020-21. 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: Anna-Lea Werlen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cremach.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.