TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gneezy,Uri
AU  - Leonard,Kenneth L.
AU  - List,John A.
TI  - Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence from a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13727
PY  - 2008
Y2  - January 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13727
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13727.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Uri Gneezy
Rady School of Management
University of California - San Diego
Otterson Hall, Room 4S136
9500 Gilman Drive #0553
La Jolla, CA 92093-0553
Tel: (858) 534-4312
Fax: (858) 534-0745
E-Mail: ugneezy@ucsd.edu

Kenneth Leonard
Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics
2200 Symons Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Tel: (301) 405 8589
E-Mail: kleonard@arec.umd.edu

John List
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 301/405-1288
Fax: 301/314-9091
E-Mail: jlist@uchicago.edu
AB  - This study uses a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India.  One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a patriarchal society whereas the Khasi are matrilineal.  Similar to the extant evidence drawn from experiments executed in Western cultures, Maasai men opt to compete at roughly twice the rate as Maasai women.  Interestingly, this result is reversed amongst the Khasi, where women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men, and even choose to compete weakly more often than Maasai men.  We view these results as potentially providing insights into the underpinnings of the factors hypothesized to be determinants of the observed gender differences in selecting into competitive environments.
ER  -