Gender differences in risk behaviour. Does nurture matter?

Autor/inn/en	Booth, Alison L.; Nolen, Patrick
Titel	Gender differences in risk behaviour. Does nurture matter?
Quelle	Colchester: Univ. of Essex, Dep. of Economics (2009), 25, [4] S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	Discussion paper series / University of Essex, Department of Economics. 672
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie; Graue Literatur
Schlagwörter	Test; Soziale Beziehung; Geschlecht; Frauenbildung; Arbeitspapier; Risiko; Risikoabschätzung; Großbritannien
Abstract	Women and men may differ in their propensity to choose a risky outcome because of innate preferences or because pressure to conform to gender-stereotypes encourages girls and boys to modify their innate preferences. Single-sex environments are likely to modify students' risk-taking preferences in economically important ways. To test this, we designed a controlled experiment in which subjects were given an opportunity to choose a risky outcome - a real-stakes gamble with a higher expected monetary value than the alternative outcome with a certain payoff - and in which the sensitivity of observed risk choices to environmental factors could be explored. The results of our real-stakes gamble show that gender differences in preferences for risk-taking are indeed sensitive to whether the girl attends a single-sex or coed school. Girls from single-sex schools are as likely to choose the real-stakes gamble as boys from either coed or single sex schools, and more likely than coed girls. Moreover, we found that gender differences in preferences for risk-taking are sensitive to the gender mix of the experimental group, with girls being more likely to choose risky outcomes when assigned to all-girl groups. This suggests that observed gender differences in behaviour under uncertainty found in previous studies might reflect social learning rather than inherent gender traits.
Erfasst von	ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel
Update	2010/2