IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0211.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender, Risk and Stereotypes

Author

Listed:
  • Daruvala, Dinky

    (Karlstad University)

Abstract

This paper reports results from an economic experiment where respondents are asked to make choices between risky outcomes for themselves and others. In addition, we elicit information about the respondents’ perception of others risk preferences. We investigate whether subjects’ own risk preferences and gender stereotypes are reflected in the prediction they make for the risk preferences of others and the way this occurs. We find no significant difference in risk preferences between men and women in the experiment. However, both men and women perceive women to be more risk averse than men. When predicting other people’s risk preferences, the respondents tend to use a combination of their own risk preferences and stereotypes. Moreover, when making risky choices for others, the respondents generally use a combination of their own risk preferences and their average predicted risk preference of the targeted group.

Suggested Citation

  • Daruvala, Dinky, 2006. "Gender, Risk and Stereotypes," Working Papers in Economics 211, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/2704
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Isaac, R Mark & James, Duncan, 2000. "Just Who Are You Calling Risk Averse?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 177-187, March.
    3. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2008. "Forecasting Risk Attitudes: An Experimental Study Using Actual and Forecast Gamble Choices," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-01, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    4. Kachelmeier, Steven J & Shehata, Mohamed, 1992. "Examining Risk Preferences under High Monetary Incentives: Experimental Evidence from the People's Republic of China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1120-1141, December.
    5. repec:bla:econom:v:72:y:2005:i:3:p:375-396 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Siegrist, Michael & Cvetkovich, George & Gutscher, Heinz, 2002. "Risk Preference Predictions and Gender Stereotypes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 91-102, January.
    7. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 620-630, October.
    8. Renate Schubert, 1999. "Financial Decision-Making: Are Women Really More Risk-Averse?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 381-385, May.
    9. Sunden, Annika E & Surette, Brian J, 1998. "Gender Differences in the Allocation of Assets in Retirement Savings Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 207-211, May.
    10. Palsson, Anne-Marie, 1996. "Does the degree of relative risk aversion vary with household characteristics?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 771-787, December.
    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. Dinky Daruvala, 2007. "Gender, risk and stereotypes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 265-283, December.
    2. J. Francois Outreville, 2014. "Risk Aversion, Risk Behavior, and Demand for Insurance: A Survey," Journal of Insurance Issues, Western Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 37(2), pages 158-186.
    3. Steve Agnew & Neil Harrison, 2017. "The Role of Gender, Cognitive Attributes and Personality on Willingness to Take Risks," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 7(1), pages 1-16, June.
    4. Mohammadi, Ali & Shafi, Kourosh, 2015. "The contribution patterns of equity-crowdfunding investors: Gender, Risk aversion and Observational learning," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 419, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    5. Sultan Saqar Oqaidan Alwahaibi, 2019. "Is Demographic Information Influence Risk Tolerance/Aversion in Investment Decision? Evidences from Literature Review," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 9(1), pages 111-122, January.
    6. 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.
    7. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    8. Chetan Dave & Catherine Eckel & Cathleen Johnson & Christian Rojas, 2010. "Eliciting risk preferences: When is simple better?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 219-243, December.
    9. Chaudhuri, Ananish & Cruickshank, Amy & Sbai, Erwann, 2015. "Gender differences in personnel management: Some experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 20-32.
    10. Parrotta, Pierpaolo & Smith, Nina, 2013. "Female-Led Firms: Performance and Risk Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 7613, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Muriel Niederle, 2014. "Gender," NBER Working Papers 20788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Friedman, Daniel & Habib, Sameh & James, Duncan & Crockett, Sean, 2018. "Varieties of risk elicitation," Discussion Papers, Research Professorship Market Design: Theory and Pragmatics SP II 2018-501, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    13. Sheryl Ball & Catherine Eckel & Maria Heracleous, 2010. "Risk aversion and physical prowess: Prediction, choice and bias," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 167-193, December.
    14. Stark, Oded & Zawojska, Ewa, 2015. "Gender differentiation in risk-taking behavior: On the relative risk aversion of single men and single women," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 83-87.
    15. Arnaud Reynaud & Stéphane Couture, 2012. "Stability of risk preference measures: results from a field experiment on French farmers," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 203-221, August.
    16. Andrea Bellucci & Alexander Borisov & Alberto Zazzaro, 2011. "Do Male and Female Loan Officers Differ in Small Business Lending? A Review of the Literature," Contributions to Economics, in: Giorgio Calcagnini & Ilario Favaretto (ed.), The Economics of Small Businesses, chapter 0, pages 195-219, Springer.
    17. Maurizio Rocca & Neha Neha & Tiziana Rocca, 2020. "Female management, overconfidence and debt maturity: European evidence," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 24(3), pages 713-747, September.
    18. Nelson, Julie A., 2012. "Are Women Really More Risk-Averse than Men?," Working Papers 179104, Tufts University, Global Development and Environment Institute.
    19. Arnaud A. Reynaud & Stéphane S. Couture, 2011. "Stability of risk preference measures: results from a field experiment on french farmers," Post-Print hal-02803766, HAL.
    20. Matthias Gysler & Jamie Kruse & Renate Schubert, 2002. "Ambiguity and Gender Differences in Financial Decision Making: An Experimental Examination of Competence and Confidence Effects," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 02/23, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; risk aversion; risk predictions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:gunwpe:0211. 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: Jessica Oscarsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.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.