The gender gap in competition stems from preference differences, not ability gaps.

Evidence

When risky and competitive behavior is examined in the laboratory, the same gender differences arise again and again. For example, Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) examined whether men and women of the same abilities differed in their preference to participate in a competitive task. Participants completed a simple math task with a noncompetitive incentive structure and then completed the same task with a tournament style, competitive incentive structure. For a third task, participants were permitted to choose an incentive structure for the task. Of the male participants, 73% selected the competitive task, whereas only 35% of the female participants made this choice. The authors found that this gender difference was not explained by differences in performance but instead was partially driven by men’s greater preference for performing competitively. Along similar lines, Kleinjans (2009) reported that women evince a greater distaste for competition than men and that this distaste predicts women’s selection into less competitive occupations. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1206

Categorization

• CANDY: 73% vs 35% choosing competitive incentives is a striking, simple-to-relay statistic.