Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism

Abstract

We study gender differences in altruism by examining a modi ed dictator game with varying incomes and prices. Our results indicate that the question "which is the fair sex?" has a complicated answer-when altruism is expensive, women are kinder, but when it is cheap, men are more altruistic. That is, we nd that the male and female "demand curves for altruism" cross, and that men are more responsive to price changes. Furthermore, men are more likely to be either perfectly sel sh or perfectly sel ess, whereas women tend to be "equalitarians" who prefer to share evenly.

'The Devil is in the Details' - Sex Differences in Simple Bargaining Games

“…This hypothesis has recently been supported by studies using adults' samples (Gneezy, et al 2003;Niederle and Vesterlund 2007), and a study using a children's sample (Gneezy and Rusticini 2004). Note that these two findings are quite consistent with an evolutionary account of sex 2 differences in preferences 1 Following Croson and Gneezy (2006), we define gender differences in social preferences as the different way in which others' payoffs (utilities) enter into the utility functions of men and women. 2 The term "sex" is used here to refer to the biological categorization of the two sexes, male and female.…”

“…1 In a recent paper, Cox and Deck (2006) acknowledge the fact that, although several laboratory studies have found significant gender differences, the magnitude and direction of these differences are far from being known and explained. Similarly, in an exhaustive review, Croson and Gneezy (2006) only find support for the claim that 'women's social preferences are more sensitive to subtle cues that are men's ' (2006: 45).…”

Female Leaders and Financial Inclusion. Evidence from Microfinance Institutions

“…To control for this, we estimate with instrument for a female leader. The instrument is the probability of being a female leader, given that women tend to choose altruism (Andreoni & Vesterlund, 2001), shy away from competition (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007), and show risk aversion (Charness & Gneezy, 2012;Eckel & Grossman, 2008) more than men do. In the process, we confirm greater altruism and greater competition avoidance but cannot confirm greater risk aversion among MFIs with female leaders.…”

“…The lower the interest rate charged to the customer, the better a poor household can meet its loan commitments and the better the MFI is at reaching low-9 income households. Armendáriz and Morduch (2010) In controlled laboratory experiments, researchers generally find that women are more selfless or altruistic than men and thus more concerned with equality and caring for the less well off (Andreoni & Vesterlund 2001;Eckel & Grossman 1998). Women's motivations tend towards benevolence and universalism rather than self-enhancement.…”

“…We employ a unique data set of MFIs to show that female leadership indeed allocates resources more consistently to poor households than male leadership does. Building on results from psychological experiments, we assume the female leader to be more outreach oriented than male peers due to different personality traits such as altruism (Andreoni & Vesterlund, 2001), competitiveness (Niederle & Vesterlund 2007), and risk aversion (Charness & Gneezy 2012;Eckel & Grossman 2008) or due to different competencelevels. An outreach oriented MFI can look for these personality traits, inducing an endogeneity problem in that outreach oriented MFIs select female leaders.…”