Endogenously Emerging Gender Pay Gap in an Experimental Teamwork Setting

We studied gender diversity and performance in endogenously formed teams in a repeated teamwork setting. In our experiment, the participants (<i>N</i> = 168, 84 women and 84 men) chose whether to perform a cooperative task only with members of the own gender or in a mixed-gender team. We...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Özgür Gürerk, Bernd Irlenbusch, Bettina Rockenbach
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-12-01
Series:Games
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/9/4/98
Description
Summary:We studied gender diversity and performance in endogenously formed teams in a repeated teamwork setting. In our experiment, the participants (<i>N</i> = 168, 84 women and 84 men) chose whether to perform a cooperative task only with members of the own gender or in a mixed-gender team. We found that independent of the choice of team, in the initial period, men contributed significantly more to the team projects than women. Men preferred the successful men-only teams in the subsequent periods, resulting in significantly higher profits for men compared to women. This endogenously emerging &#8220;gender pay gap&#8222; only closed over time.
ISSN:2073-4336