Are Gender Differences in Performance Innate or Socially Mediated?

BenYishay, Ariel ; Jones, Maria ; Kondylis, Florence ; Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SKILLS;    EMPOWERMENT;    BIRTH;    COMMUNITIES;    BENEFIT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7689
RP-ID  :  WPS7689

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

To explain persistent gender gaps inmarket outcomes, a lab experimental literature exploreswhether women and men have innate differences in ability (orattitudes or preferences), and a separate field-basedliterature studies discrimination against women in marketsettings. This paper posits that even if women havecomparable innate ability, their relative performance maysuffer in the market if the task requires them to interactwith others in society, and they are subject todiscrimination in those interactions. The paper tests theseideas using a large-scale field experiment in 142 Malawianvillages where men or women were randomly assigned the taskof learning about a new agricultural technology, and thencommunicating it to others to convince them to adopt it.Although female communicators learn and retain the newinformation just as well, and those taught by womenexperience higher farm yields, the women are not assuccessful at teaching or convincing others to adopt the newtechnology. Micro-data on individual interactions from 4,000farmers in these villages suggest that other farmersperceive female communicators to be less able, and are lessreceptive to the women's messages.Relatively smallincentives for rewards undo the disparity in performance byencouraging added interactions, improving farmers'accuracy about female communicators' relative skill.