Biological Basis of Gender Gap in Risk And Competitivenessdoc点击下载源文件到手机、MP4、电脑进行自己编辑哟.doc

BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF SEX DIFFERENCES IN RISK AVERSION AND COMPETITIVENESS* Anna Drebera and Moshe Hoffmanb Abstract We review the evidence regarding a biological basis for sex differences in risk aversion and competitiveness. We present the relevant literature in evolutionary theory, and animal behavior, endocrinology and neuroscience, as well as the literature relating human risk aversion and competitiveness to handedness, 2D:4D (a proxy of prenatal testosterone exposure), facial masculinity (a proxy of pubertal testosterone exposure), as well as circulating testosterone. While the results are thus far somewhat mixed, the evidence suggests that biological factors explain part of the sex gap in these economic preferences. Introduction Even though women in many countries are at least as likely as men to pursue higher education, women still earn considerably lower wages than men, work in very different occupations (e.g., Altonji and Blank 1999), and do not rise as high in the hierarchy (Bertrand and Hallock 2001). Recently, research has suggested that differences in preferences for risk and competition may partly explain this sex gap in the labor market (e.g., Gneezy et al. 2003; Niederle and Vesterlund 2007; Croson and Gneezy 2009). Risk preferences correlate with occupation and wages (Bonin et al. 2007; Dohmen et al. 2009; Barsky et al. 1997), as, presumably, does competitiveness, and women are generally more risk averse and less competitive than men (reviewed in Croson and Gneezy 2009, Bertrand 2010). Evidence shows that culture influences these sex differences. For instance, Gneezy et al. (2009) found that the sex gap in competitiveness found in many western countries as well as in the patriarchal Massai in Tanzania is reversed among the matrilineal Khasi in India. Another example comes from Dreber et al. (2009), who found that children in Sweden show no sex gap in performance when competing in running, unlike what Gneezy and Rustichini (2004) had found in Isra