Gender, Competition, and Performance: International Evidence

Abstract

This paper studies whether and how gender differences in preference for competition and performance under competition vary across countries. Using a hand-collected sample of 18,300 equity analysts from 44 countries over the period 2003-2019, we first show that there is a negative and significant association between a country’s level of gender equality and its female share of equity analysts, and that there is no significant association between a country’s individualism score and its female share of equity analysts. Our first finding is consistent with the gender equality and competition hypothesis in which females’ aversion to competition is elevated in countries with high levels of gender equality. Using firm times year fixed effects to account for time-varying unobservables that could potentially drive female analysts’ coverage decision and their performance, we show that in highly individualistic countries, there is no significant difference in forecast accuracy between genders. This finding is consistent with the culture and performance hypothesis in which a country’s individualism score mitigates the negative association between competition and women’s on-the-job performance. In additional analysis, we show that in Nordic countries or in countries with the Communist ideology, there is no significant difference in forecast accuracy between genders. Finally, we find that female analysts are more overconfident as measured by absolute deviations from the consensus forecast in highly individualistic countries compared to their peers in less individualistic countries. We conclude that there are important cross-country variations in gender differences in preference for competition and performance under competition – gender differences in preferences and performance are shaped by a country’s gender equality policies, individualistic culture, and social norms.