应用经济学报告系列 (1112-35)

题目：Do Women in China Compete Just As Much As Men?

报告人：Jane Zhang，Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

时间：2:00-3:30pm, June 5th

地点：成人直播新楼216教室

Abstract:

Recent experimental economics research documents substantial gender differences in the willingness to compete in a tournament, which may explain gender inequalities in the labor market. This paper examines whether cultural norms can influence the gender gap in competitive inclination. Building on the cross-cultural research design of Gneezy et al. (2009), I exploit a cultural shock resulting from radical communist gender egalitarian reforms in China to compare gender differences in competitive inclination among the majority Han Chinese to that in two minority ethnic groups, who were exempted from important aspects of the reforms for political reasons. Confounds with culture that vary across large geographical regions are minimized by mostly recruiting subjects within the same high school. The majority Han Chinese exhibited no statistically significant gender differences in competitive inclination while women from a patrilineal minority were significantly less competitively inclined than the men and less competitively inclined than Han Chinese women. Women from a matrilineal minority were as competitively inclined as the Han Chinese women, but the matrilineal men were the most competitively inclined group, which may be due to the institution of non-exclusive marriage in this culture. These findings suggest that as the norms around men and women’s economic roles become more similar, gender differences in competitive inclination will shrink.