Gender differences in competitiveness persist even under equalized conditions: evidence across four continents

Abstract

The gender gap in willingness to compete is thought to underlie enduring inequalities in education, career choice, and labor market outcomes. Yet it remains unclear whether the gap reflects true preference differences or results from confounding factors such as task stereotypes, overconfidence, or risk aversion. We test gender differences in competition entry across eight pre-registered studies in seven countries spanning four continents (Dominican Republic, Ivory Coast, El Salvador, Madagascar, Spain, The Philippines, and Uruguay; total n = 1,833), using an experimental design that systematically minimizes these confounds: (i) based on a non-male-stereotyped task (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test); (ii) matching participants with an opponent of identical baseline, piece-rate performance to remove strategic uncertainty and the role of beliefs; and (iii) reducing the riskiness of competition. Despite these features—and no consistent gender differences in performance, we find that women enter competition significantly less than men (meta-analytic difference = 6–7 \%), with no cross-study heterogeneity in the gender gap. Overconfidence is higher among men and predicts competition entry, but it does not explain the gender gap. Risk and social preferences play no role. Thus, in a setting designed to equalize opportunity and alleviate known drivers of the gap, gender differences in competition persist. This suggests that, across cultures, interventions addressing these factors will hardly fully eliminate the gender gap in competition.