Séminaire externe du 12 juin 2014

Gender differences: evidence from field tournaments

abstract:
 
 In most societies around the world, women are often disadvantaged in the labor market and represent only a small proportion of high social achievements. We
 here propose to address the question of the origin of this gender gap in a naturally occurring environment in which males and females compete together. Our study is based on a large panel of chess games played during international tournaments. Data are collected in more than 150 countries and, thanks to Elo rankings, we precisely observe the intrinsic ability of players. We document a strong and robust gender effect. The expected gain for females decreases by about 2% against a male opponent, compared to an otherwise similar female. This gender effect is found to be universal despite huge variations in females' situation around the globe: controlling for country fi xed effects or the degree of gender inequality across countries has virtually no impact on the size of the e ffect. Last, we try to disentangle selection from the learning effect to explain why females leave chess competitions at a younger age than men.

À l'INRA d'Ivry en salle 5 à 14h.