The Gender Leadership Gap in Competitive and Cooperative Institutions

Abstract:

We investigate how the institutional setting impacts the gender leadership gap, motivated by the notion that women prefer cooperative over competitive environments. An experiment tests leaders’ ability to foster cooperation under competitive ("winner takes all") versus cooperative (equal earnings distribution) incentive schemes. All leaders enhance efficiency similarly, but a gender gap emerges under the competitive context where women receive lower evaluations for identical advice. This bias disappears in the cooperative context, where women leaders are evaluated 50% higher, suggesting the congruence of the environment with stereotypes has important policy implications. Men are more willing to lead, regardless of context.