Gender differences in social risk taking

Women in Western societies are typically more risk averse than men in individual risk taking decisions. In real life, however, risk taking decisions are usually made in a social context. So far, empirical evidence whether gender differences are also present in the social risk taking domain is missing. We use a controlled experiment to analyze gender differences in social risk taking. We find that inequality aversion is the main driver for risk aversion in social risk taking. Disaggregating the data for males and females shows that this effect is mainly driven by strong inequality aversion of women. Moreover, by running the experiment with non-standard subjects from an egalitarian small-scale society, our results suggest that gender differences in social risk taking are culture-specific.     

Gender differences in honesty: The role of social value orientation

This paper experimentally analyzes the role of individual social value orientation (SVO) on honest behavior. We focus on a situation where dishonest behavior pays off at somebody else’s cost. In which case, distributional preferences might matter for the willingness to act honestly. To examine this link we conduct a laboratory experiment where we first elicit SVO to measure distributional preferences. Afterwards, we implement a die rolling game to elicit dishonest behavior at an individual level. We detect a positive correlation between subjects’ SVO angle and honest behavior. Furthermore, the data confirm common gender differences, i.e., women are significantly more honest than men. Additionally, we find that, on average, women have higher SVO angles than men. A mediation analysis reveals that SVO explains the gender effect.     

Gender differences in the use of high-variance strategies in tournament competition

We report on a series of experiments in which participants first completed a simple game of chance and then competed in a tournament based on a multiple cue probability learning task. The results show that men made riskier choices in the simple game of chance, but women adopted the high-variance strategy more frequently in the tournament. However, after controlling for differences in forecasting skill, we find no significant differences in the rates at which men and women adopted a high-variance strategy. Although altering the difficulty of the forecasting task produces differences in the rate at which participants selected the high-variance strategy, it did not produce a significant difference in the rate at which men and women selected the strategy. Thus, this paper suggests that although women are more risk-averse than men, women are no less likely to adopt a high-variance strategy in a tournament competition.     

Gender differences in tournament and flat-wage schemes: An experimental study

We present a new experiment that explores gender differences in both performance and compensation choices. While most of the previous studies have focused on tournament vs. piece-rate schemes, the originality of our study consists in examining the gender gap in the context of a flat wage scheme. Our data indicate that females exert a significantly higher effort than men in fixed payment schemes. We find however no gender difference in performance under the tournament scheme, due to a combination of two effects. On the one hand, men more significantly increase their effort when switching from a flat wage to a tournament scheme. On the other hand, when switching from the flat wage to a tournament scheme, women have less margin to increase performance since their effort was already relatively high with a flat wage. We also find that females are more likely than males to choose a flat-wage scheme than a tournament. This gap however narrows dramatically when feedback on previous experience is provided.     

Gender differences in team work and team competition

We study whether the gender performance gap is affected by the gender composition of teams. A real-effort experiment is employed with wages based either on the team’s performance, or on the outcome of a competition between teams. We find that, relative to a single-sex environment, gender diversity increases the gender performance gap with team pay whereas it decreases the gap with team competition. The results show that there can be a tension between the objective to maximize overall performance and to minimize gender inequality.     

Gender bias in job referrals: An experimental test

Employee referral programs, while efficient for the employer, have been shown to amplify sex-based occupational segregation in labor markets because of the tendency of workers to refer people of the same gender. We implement a controlled laboratory experiment that precludes any concern for network composition or reputation effects in referral choice. In this way, our experimental design allows us to disentangle statistical discrimination, preferences, and implicit same-gender bias. Our data suggest that women tend to favor women when choosing a candidate, whereas men do not attach much importance to the gender of potential candidates. We deduce from our various treatments that same-gender referrals are mainly driven by preferences in competitive environments and implicit same-gender bias in cooperative environments. Our findings add to the existing literature by highlighting that gendered networks alone fail to explain the observed gender homophily in referred-referrer pairs.     

Income in jeopardy: How losing employment affects the willingness to take risks

Identifying the determinants of risk-taking is crucial for our understanding of a variety of choices. Using German panel data, we find that people become more risk-averse when losing work. The immediate income loss does not mediate this effect. It seems also unrelated to the loss of non-monetary benefits of work and to changes of worker’s emotional state. However, we find that risk aversion responds the more strongly to losing work the more future income is at stake, and that the effect manifests itself already on the eve of job loss when people do not yet suffer from the consequences of the event. We conclude that lower future income expectations and more uncertainty about future incomes may explain the effect of job loss on risk attitude. Our results might imply that a recession may reinforce itself as it induces people to fear job loss, which raises their risk aversion and might therefore reduce the willingness to invest in risky projects. Moreover, self-assessed risk attitude seems to measure absolute risk aversion and thus not only an underlying risk preference parameter.     

The willingness to pay–willingness to accept gap revisited: The role of emotions and moral satisfaction

While many earlier studies have found that people’s maximum willingness to pay for having a good is often substantially lower than their minimum willingness to accept not having it, more recent experimental evidence suggests that this discrepancy vanishes for standard consumption goods when an incentive-compatible design without misconceptions is used. This paper hypothesises that there is nevertheless a discrepancy for goods with a perceived moral character, such as contributions to a good cause, and moreover that the reason for this discrepancy can largely be explained by differences in emotions and moral perceptions. The results from a real-money dichotomous-choice experiment, combined with measurements of emotions and morality, are consistent with these hypotheses.     

Gender bias in performance evaluations: The impact of gender quotas

The intention behind imposing quotas for women on corporate boards is to close the gender gap in economic participation and help women to be promoted within organizations. However, the broader social psychological literature lends support to ideas that affirmative action policies, such as quotas, may do more harm than good for the beneficiaries. We extend this idea beyond the affected beneficiaries and ask whether this unintended negative effect spills over to women who are not immediate targets of the quota, by signaling incompetence. We develop an experimental design to investigate whether the announcement (study 1) and the implementation (study 2) of a quota for women have a direct negative effect on performance evaluations and hence reinforce the existing gender bias in evaluation. We observed that the performance of women was evaluated significantly lower than that of men. However, this gender bias was limited to sequential (rating) evaluations and was not evident in joint (ranking) evaluations. The quota did not significantly influence the amount of this bias. In addition, we observed more pronounced sexism in males compared to females. Results of study 2 gave a hint to an association between higher sexism and lower evaluations of women’s performance. We also found some evidence for a stronger evaluation bias in females when controlling for sexist attitudes. Hence, our results imply that the bias, which is overall quite robust and strongly pronounced, is still affected by individual gender-related characteristics.     

Gender differences in financial risk tolerance

The purpose of this research is to explore gender differences in financial risk tolerance using a large, nationally representative dataset, the Survey of Consumer Finances. The impact of the explanatory variables in the model is allowed to differ between men and women to decompose gender differences in financial risk tolerance. The results indicate that gender differences in financial risk tolerance are explained by gender differences in the individual determinants of financial risk tolerance, and that the disparity does not result from gender in and of itself. The individual variables that moderate the relationship between gender and high risk tolerance are income uncertainty and net worth, with income uncertainty moderating the relationship between gender and some risk tolerance. Financial fiduciaries should understand the differences in income uncertainty and net worth between men and women and how those differences relate to risk tolerance.     

Gender differences in perceptions of aftercare supports and services

Youth depart residential care with many continued risk factors, unique needs, and challenges as they reintegrate into the home, school, and community settings. Currently, there is limited research on needs and best practices in aftercare services and supports for youth departing from residential settings and even less is known about how these differ by gender. While preliminary studies have explored perceptions of need during reintegration and aftercare by youth and caregivers, little is known about how these may differ by gender or if perceptions change over time after experiencing the initial transition period. One way to address this knowledge gap is to identify how prepared males and females feel for reintegration in critical life domains, their beliefs about aftercare, and preferences regarding potential services or supports to aide in the reintegration at discharge. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore if males and females differ on preparedness for reintegration across critical life domains, beliefs about aftercare, and preferences regarding potential services or supports to aide in the reintegration at departure from a residential treatment facility (N = 132). Overall, very few differences were found between males and females at departure. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.     

Parenthood,risk attitudes and risky behavior

This study analyzes how risk attitudes change when individuals experience the major life event of becoming a parent by using longitudinal data for a large and representative sample of individuals from Germany. The analysis uses a survey-based measure of risk aversion. The estimation is based on an individual fixed effects model similar to an event study. On average, men and women experience a considerable increase in risk aversion around the time of first childbirth. This increase already starts as early as two years before they become parents, it is largest shortly after childbirth and it disappears when the child becomes older. When analyzing risky choices, the results indicate that risky labor market behavior remains unaffected by parenthood.     

On the behavioural relevance of optional and mandatory impure public goods

Impure public goods combine a private good with a public good. Often, impure public goods have a charitable or ethical dimension, giving ethically motivated consumers a convenient option to contribute to public goods through the marketplace (in addition to direct donations). Impure public goods could potentially promote ethical giving or alternatively hinder charitable behaviour. We implement an economics experiment with a between-subject design to test the behavioural relevance of impure public goods with only a token (i.e. small) contribution to a public good. Contributions to the public good are negatively affected by the presence of impure public goods with token contributions. We explore one mechanism to offset this negative impact by making the token impure public good mandatory. We observe higher average contributions and several positive impacts on charitable behaviour, which supports the claim that this mechanism can potentially offset the negative impact of impure public goods.     

Gender differences in risk behavior and the link to household effects and individual wealth

This study examined the differences in risk behavior between men and women using a household survey that captured the risk preferences of two members in a household and recorded wealth at the individual level instead of the usual approach of representing wealth at the household level. After controlling for commonly used explanatory variables, such as gender, education, age, and wealth, household fixed effects explain about 15% of the variation in risk behavior. This highlights the magnitude of household effects in shaping one’s risk behavior. In general, females in the study area are more risk averse than males based on a risk game with real payout. The gender differences disappear when focusing on only the top land owners. However, even in those cases, females consider themselves more risk averse, supporting results from previous studies that link culture and societal norms to the gender differences in risk behavior.     

Placing Gender in Social Work: The Local and National Dimensions of Gender Relations

This paper argues that as well as being sensitive to wider discourses of gender relations, social workers need to consider the ways in which gender is localised. It is argued that to some extent gender practices vary according to local culture, that gendered identities are often localised and that social workers tend to construct their clients according to images of local men and women. These images tend to be stereotypical but some do also reflect dominant local gendered practices. The paper draws on data from qualitative interviews with social workers and probation officers, as well as the experience of teaching social work students, to illustrate these arguments. Whilst it is argued that the localising of gender is of general relevance, the data come from Wales alone. The author's conclusion is that (amongst other things) anti‐oppressive practice involves recognising the important influence of local stereotypes and challenging them, whilst also acknowledging that gendered practices do vary from place to place.     

When social accounts promote acceptance of unfair ultimatum offers: The role of the victim’s stress responses to uncertainty and power position

We examined which type of social account (denying responsibility versus apologizing) following an unfair offer makes recipients more likely to accept the offer in ultimatum bargaining. We identified stress responses to uncertainty as an individual difference factor that should moderate the relative effectiveness of these social accounts. A denial should make acceptance of an unfair offer more likely among recipients who respond to uncertainty with low stress. An apology should make such acceptance more likely among recipients who respond with high stress. Further, we argued that this cross-over interaction should be observed particularly among recipients interacting with a high power allocator. Two ultimatum bargaining experiments supported these ideas. Employing the perspective of victims of unfairness, the present research identifies a relevant individual difference moderator of the effectiveness of social accounts in bargaining situations and identifies power as a situational variable that promotes the expression of this factor.     

Interpersonal risk assessment and social preferences: An experimental study

We investigate interpersonal risk assessment, that is how individuals use either their own or their partner’s monetary resources to offset the risk that affects them or their partner. The observed behavior is in line with the predictions of a simple piecewise linear model of social preferences. Overall, individuals opportunistically draw from others’ resources to offset risk; furthermore, they display higher levels of risk aversion when delegated to choose for others rather than when choosing for themselves. However, different social types differ in the assessment of interpersonal risk. Considering our results, we suggest that studies dealing with interpersonal risk assessment should not only focus on risk preferences, but also take into account social preferences.     

It does (not) get better: Reference income violation and altruism

We experimentally test whether the gap between reference and actual income impacts subsequent altruism. Participants first perform a real-effort task for a fixed wage and then play a dictator game. Between conditions, we vary the level and the timing of the revelation of the wage. In some conditions, participants know the wage before the real effort task and are not informed of the other potential levels. In some other conditions, they are informed of the distribution of wages before the real effort task, but the actual wage is only revealed afterward. Participants in the latter conditions can form references that may be higher or lower than their actual wage. Our hypothesis is that the gap between the reference and the actual wage impacts transfers in the subsequent dictator game, either because participants want to compensate their recent losses, or because of the emotional reaction to gains and losses. The results support this hypothesis: participants who get the low wage transfer less and are less likely to transfer when they are informed of the other potential levels than when they are not. Conversely, participants who get the high wage are more likely to transfer positive amounts when they are informed of the other potential levels. We use physiological (skin conductance response) and declarative data to discuss the role of emotions in our treatment effects.     

The efficacy of tables versus graphs in disrupting dark networks: An experimental study

An agent tasked with disrupting a dark (covert and illegal) network must first be presented with information about the organization's structure. This paper uses a behavioral experiment to test in a stylized dark network disruption setting whether an agent makes a better disruption choice when the information is displayed in a table or a graph format. We find that subjects make decisions more quickly when presented with graphs, but that subjects perform weakly better with tables. An important lesson is that the display should explicitly distinguish non-existent links from potential links of unknown status.     

The Proxy Effect: Gender and Gambling Problem Trajectories of Iowa Gambling Treatment Program Participants

Recent research has found that men and women who end up in gambling treatment tend to follow different trajectories to that endpoint: women generally begin gambling later in life, but progress to problems and seek treatment more quickly. With women’s prevalence rates of gambling and disordered gambling increasing, it has become important to identify the causes and consequences of these trajectory differences. The current study used a sample of 2,256 gamblers enrolled in the Iowa Gambling Treatment Program to examine the relationship of gender and other demographic, economic and health-related (i.e., psychosocial) factors to empirically-identified gambling problem trajectories. The results indicated that gender made a statistically significant contribution to the prediction of trajectory, but increased predictive accuracy by only 1–2% beyond a model with psychosocial predictors. Gender’s contribution was limited to its relationship to age of initiation; men and women’s problem progression did not differ meaningfully once age of gambling initiation was taken into account. Gender is a unique contributor to the development of gambling problems among treatment seekers, but it is only one small part of the myriad psychosocial characteristics that influence gambling problem development.