Abstract:

Gender differences in competitiveness and risk preferences have been hypothesized as potential explanations for gender differences in education and labor market outcomes. STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics) education is one of the most significant dimensions of gender differences in career choices. In many Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, girls are les likely than boys to choose STEM courses in secondary education and university. It has been suggested that competitiveness could be a relevant trait to explain entry into fields such as mathematics and engineering, which are male dominated and viewed as competitive. There is, for example, evidence that gender differences in competitiveness accounts for a substantial portion of the gender difference in track choice in secondary education. Likewise, prior research shows that, on the one hand, women are typically more risk averse than men and, on the other hand, higher levels of risk aversion are predictive of a greater propensity to pursue careers in the public sector. However, the connection between gender, preferences, and career choices has not been previously explored at the university level.

In this paper we examine the role of gender differences in competitiveness and risk preferences for the important choice of academic degree of university students. We conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment with a total sample of 292 first-year students from five academic profiles at the University of Jaén (Spain): Engineering, Science, Business Administration, Law, and Humanities. Using economic (monetary) incentives, we use standard experimental measures for competitiveness and risk attitudes which have been tested with real outcomes.

In line with previous literature, the students in our sample exhibit the expected gender differences. That is, although the mathematical skills of men and women are very similar, we find that: i) men are more than twice as likely as women to choose the competitive payment scheme (two-sample t-test, p<0.001); ii) women show a low tolerance to risk (two-sample t-test, p=0.0017), and iii) men choose significantly STEM careers than women. More importantly, when controlling by gender, the findings show significant relationships between chosen career and competitiveness for women but not for men (results of Chi-Square tests for association: p = 0.074 for women and p = 0.739 for men). However, we do not find significant association with chosen career and risk preferences (p = 0.495 for women and p = 0.455 for men). Therefore, these results suggest that gender differences in competitiveness accounts for the gender difference in career choice just for women.

Keywords:

Gender, competitiveness, risk preferences, career choice, lab-in-the field experiment.