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Is there a gender difference in the ability to deal with failures? Evidence from professional golf tournaments

Author

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  • Rosenqvist, Olof

    (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy)

Abstract
Recent experimental evidence suggests that women in general are more discouraged than men by failures which potentially can explain why women, on average, are less likely than men to reach top positions in firms. This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence from the field on this issue using data from all-female and all-male professional golf tournaments to see if this result can be replicated among competitive men and women. These top-performing men and women are active in an environment with multiple rounds of competition and the institutional set-up of the tournaments makes it possible to causally estimate the effect of the result in one tournament on the performance in the next. The results show that both male and female golfers respond negatively to a failure and that their responses are virtually identical. This finding gives support to the hypothesis that women’s difficulties in reaching top positions in firms are caused by external rather than internal barriers, but does of course not rule that other internal barriers may be present for women.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosenqvist, Olof, 2016. "Is there a gender difference in the ability to deal with failures? Evidence from professional golf tournaments," Working Paper Series 2016:14, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2016_014
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Buser & Huaiping Yuan, 2019. "Do Women Give Up Competing More Easily? Evidence from the Lab and the Dutch Math Olympiad," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 225-252, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    glass ceiling; failure; gender; regression discontinuity design; golf;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

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