Study casts doubt on theory that women aren't as competitive as men


Date:
November 1, 2021
Source:
University of Arizona
Summary:
The theory has been touted as a possible explanation for America's
longstanding gender wage gap. But new research suggests women
exhibit their competitiveness differently.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
As researchers investigate reasons for America's persistent gender wage
gap, one possible explanation that has emerged in roughly the last decade
is that women may be less competitive than men, and are therefore passed
over for higher-ranking roles with larger salaries.


==========================================================================
But a new study suggests that it's likely not that simple. Researchers
found that women enter competitions at the same rate as men -- when they
have the option to share their winnings with the losers.

The study, conducted by Mary L. Rigdon, associate director of the
UArizona Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, and Alessandra Cassar,
professor of economics at the University of San Francisco, is published
in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rigdon's research involves studying how market structure, information
and incentives impact behavior. Her work over the last 20 years has
explored questions about trust, reciprocity, competition, altruism,
cheating and more, with a particular focus on gender differences,
especially the gender wage gap.

"If we're finally going to close the gender pay gap, then we have to
understand the sources of it -- and also solutions and remedies for
it," said Rigdon, who is also a faculty affiliate in the Department
of Political Economy and Moral Science in the College of Social and
Behavioral Sciences.

In 2021, women will earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, Rigdon
said, meaning women work nearly three months extra to receive the same
amount of pay.

This statistic does not account for certain characteristics, such as an employee's age, experience or level of education.



==========================================================================
But even when considering those characteristics, women are still paid
about 98 cents for every dollar earned by men, Rigdon said. In other
words, a woman is paid 2% less than a man with the same qualifications.

Economists have considered a few possible explanations for this,
Rigdon said.

One theory, known as the "human capital explanation," suggests that there
are gender differences in certain skills, leading women to careers that
pay less.

Another theory -- perhaps the most widely considered -- is patent discrimination.

Rigdon and Cassar zeroed in on the relatively new theory that women are
less competitive and less willing to take risks than men.

But if women were more reluctant to compete, then they would occupy fewer
high- ranking positions at the tops of major companies, and that's not the trend that's taken shape over the last several years, Rigdon said. Women
make up about 8% of the CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies. While that
number is low overall, it's a record high.

"We thought it must be the case that women are as competitive as men,
but they just exhibit it differently, so we wanted to try to get at that
story and demonstrate that that is the case," Rigdon said. "Because that's
then a very different story about the gender wage gap." Rigdon and Cassar randomly assigned 238 participants -- split nearly evenly by gender --
to two different groups for the study. Participants in each of those
two groups were then randomly assigned to four-person subgroups.



==========================================================================
For all participants, the first round of the study was the same: Each
was asked to look at tables of 12 three-digit numbers with two decimal
places and find the two numbers that add to 10. Participants were asked
to solve as many tables as possible -- up to 20 -- in two minutes. Each participant was paid $2 for every table they solved in the first round.

In round two, participants were asked to do the same task, but the
two groups were incentivized differently. In the first group, the two participants in each four-person team who solved the most tables earned
$4 per table solved, while their other two team members were given
nothing. In the other group, the top two performers of each four-person
team also earned $4 per table, but they had the right to decide how much
of the prize money to share with one of the lower performing participants.

In the third round, all participants were allowed to choose which payment scheme they preferred from the two previous rounds. For half the study participants, this meant a choice between a guaranteed $2 per correct
table, or potentially $4 per correct table if they became one of the
top-two performers in their four-person subgroup. For the other half of
the participants, the choice was $2 per correct table, or $4 per correct
table for the top-two performers with the option to share the winnings
with one of the losing participants.

The number of women who chose the competitive option nearly doubled when
given the option to share their winnings; about 60% chose to compete under
that option, while only about 35% chose to compete in the winner-take-all version of the tournament.

About 51% of men in the study chose the winner-take-all option, and 52.5%
chose the format that allowed for sharing with the losers.

Rigdon said she and Cassar have a few theories about why women are more inclined to compete when they can share the winnings. One suggests female participants are simply interested in controlling the way the winnings
are divvied up among the other participants.

Another theory that has emerged among evolutionary psychologists, Rigdon
said, suggests that female participants may be inclined to smooth over
bad feelings with losers of the competition.

"We really have to ask what it is about this social incentive that
drives women to compete. We think it's recognizing the different costs
and benefits that come from your different biological and cultural constraints," she said. "But at the end of the day, I think we still have
this question." Rigdon and Cassar are now developing an experiment that
gets to the heart of that question, Rigdon said.

The researchers are careful to not propose policies for corporate America
based on a line of research that still has many questions. But, Rigdon
said, the latest finding suggests that corporations might do well to
engage in more socially responsible activity.

"Maybe you'll attract a different set of applicants to your CEO positions
or your board of director positions," she said. "Women might be more
attracted to positions where there is this social component that isn't
there in more traditional, incentive-based firms where it's all about
CEO bonuses." The research was funded by a grant from the National
Science Foundation.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Arizona. Original
written by Kyle Mittan.

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Alessandra Cassar, Mary L. Rigdon. Prosocial option increases
women's
entry into competition. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 2021; 118 (45): e2111943118 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2111943118 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211101154808.htm

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