Why Women Don’t Run: Experimental Evidence on Gender Differences in Political Competition Aversion
Highlighting the competitive nature of the political process discourages politically active women—but not men—from seeking information on running for office.
Cite this Article
Preece, Jessica, and Olga Stoddard. “Why Women Don’t Run: Experimental Evidence on Gender Differences in Political Competition Aversion.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, vol. 117, 2015, pp. 296-308.
Preece, J., & Stoddard, O. (2015). Why women don’t run: Experimental evidence on gender differences in political competition aversion. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 117, 296-308.
Preece, Jessica, and Olga Stoddard. “Why Women Don’t Run: Experimental Evidence on Gender Differences in Political Competition Aversion.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 117 (2015): 296-308.
Authors
This article was written by and , and was originally published by Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization in September of 2015Women are greatly underrepresented in leadership positions across a range of fields. In U.S. politics, women hold only a fifth of elected congressional offices, a quarter of state legislative seats, and a tenth of governorships. Previous research indicates that women have less ambition for leadership positions, which may be explained in part by greater aversion than men to competitive environments. This field experiment investigates whether an emphasis on competition reduces political leadership ambition among politically active women, contributing to the gender gap. Specifically, the authors examined whether reading a message highlighting the competitive nature of political campaigns reduced women’s interest in learning more about running for office. This study had three major contributions to the field: 1) use of a sample of highly political individuals who are well positioned to enter political roles, 2) measurement of behavioral outcomes (i.e. how much time participants spent learning about running for office) rather than just self-reported attitudes or interest, and 3) randomization of participants to isolate the effects of competitiveness on ambition.
Cite this Article
Preece, Jessica, and Olga Stoddard. “Why Women Don’t Run: Experimental Evidence on Gender Differences in Political Competition Aversion.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, vol. 117, 2015, pp. 296-308.
Preece, J., & Stoddard, O. (2015). Why women don’t run: Experimental evidence on gender differences in political competition aversion. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 117, 296-308.
Preece, Jessica, and Olga Stoddard. “Why Women Don’t Run: Experimental Evidence on Gender Differences in Political Competition Aversion.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 117 (2015): 296-308.
