@article{ab3f835d8d6f428d8cb52b8eb8befc89,
title = "Competitive Pressure Widens the Gender Gap in Performance: Evidence from a Two-stage Competition in Mathematics",
abstract = "In two-stage elimination math contests, participants from four different age groups compete to pass from stage 1 to stage 2 and later to be among the winners. Although female participants have higher maths grades at school the gender gap reverses in the two stages of the contests. More importantly, following the same individual participant across different stages, we find that the gender gap in performance increases from stage 1 to stage 2. The increase in female underperformance is attributed to higher competitive pressure and alternative explanations based on selection, discrimination and differences in reaction to increasing difficulty are ruled out.",
author = "Nagore Iriberri and P. Rey-Biel",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Sara de la Rica, Bernardo Garc?a-Pola, Uri Gneezy, I?igo Hern?ndez-Arenaz, an editor and three anonymous referees and seminar participants at various institutions and conferences for helpful comments. We are particularly thankful to the organisers of Concurso de Primavera de Matem?ticas, who collaborated throughout the project. We also thank Adri? Bronchal, Gerard Dom?nech and Lluis Puig for excellent research assistance. Nagore Iriberri acknowledges financial support from Departamento de Educaci?n, Pol?tica Ling??stica y Cultura del Gobierno Vasco IT869-13, Ministerio de Econom?a y Competitividad y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (ECO2015-66027-P) and Instituto de la Mujer (2001-0004-INV-00037). Pedro Rey-Biel acknowledges financial support from Programa Ram?n y Cajal, Ministerio de Econom?a y Competitividad y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (ECO2015-63679-P and the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0563)), Instituto de la Mujer (2001-0004-INV-00037) and Barcelona GSE. Funding Information: We thank Sara de la Rica, Bernardo Garc{\'i}a-Pola, Uri Gneezy, I{\~n}igo Hern{\'a}ndez-Arenaz, an editor and three anonymous referees and seminar participants at various institutions and conferences for helpful comments. We are particularly thankful to the organisers of Concurso de Primavera de Matem{\'a}ticas, who collaborated throughout the project. We also thank Adri{\`a} Bronchal, Gerard Dom{\`e}nech and Lluis Puig for excellent research assistance. Nagore Iriberri acknowledges financial support from Departamento de Educaci{\'o}n, Pol{\'i}tica Ling{\"u}{\'i}stica y Cultura del Gobierno Vasco IT869-13, Ministerio de Econom{\'i}a y Competitividad y Fondo Eu-ropeo de Desarrollo Regional (ECO2015-66027-P) and Instituto de la Mujer (2001-0004-INV-00037). Pedro Rey-Biel acknowledges financial support from Programa Ram{\'o}n y Cajal, Ministerio de Econom{\'i}a y Compet-itividad y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (ECO2015-63679-P and the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0563)), Instituto de la Mujer (2001-0004-INV-00037) and Barcelona GSE. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 Royal Economic Society. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Economic Society.",
year = "2019",
doi = "10.1111/ecoj.12617",
language = "English",
volume = "129",
pages = "1863--1893",
journal = "Economic Journal",
issn = "0013-0133",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "620",
}
