Replication: Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Experimental Evidence from China

Abstract We investigate gender differences in competitiveness using a lab-in-the-field experiment and a subject pool consisting of Chinese adults following the design by Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) . China provides an interesting environment to study since the country has promoted gender equality for a long time and the gender gap in earnings is small in cross-country comparisons. However, in many respects, China is still a patriarchal society. Our results show that women perform equally well as men in a piece-rate task and significantly better in a competitive payment environment. Despite this, men are more than twice as likely to choose a competitive environment. This gender difference cannot be explained by differences in confidence or risk preferences.