The stereotype about women at work is that they are more risk-averse than men, and that this holds them back from promotions and other beneficial aspects of workplace life.  Research from the University of Arizona puts a different stance on things and suggests that women are happy to take risks and generally engage in competitive behavior, but generally more so if they can share the potential winnings.

The researchers recruited volunteers, who were an even split of men and women, and asked them to solve various simple number puzzles.  The aim was to test how various forms of financial incentives might influence the competitive behaviors of the participants.  Such experiments have been conducted many times before, and often women would show less interest in competing than men.

A fresh twist

Half of the volunteers were given a reward of $2 for each problem they successfully solved, with this reward rising to $4 for the best two performers in each group of four, with the remaining two getting nothing.  Then, in a final round, the participants were asked whether they wanted to revert to the original $2 for every successful problem solved scenario or continue with the more competitive one.

The results echo previous studies in that while 52% of men went for the competitive option, just 34% of women did so.  The researchers deviated from this standard methodological approach with a second pool of volunteers, however, who were told in the second round that they could share some of their winnings with the two lower-performing members of their group.

This simple step appeared to eliminate the competitiveness gap between men and women, as while men typically competed at the same rate as before, considerably more women chose the riskier option when they could share their winnings.

The researchers believe this matters because much of the gender pay gap can be explained by the fact that women are systemically underpromoted and also more likely to enter careers with lower salaries.  There have also been suggestions that gender differences in competitiveness may also play a role, with seemingly competitive roles often commanding higher salaries.

They suggest that the belief that women are less competitive than men and this, therefore, explains their under-representation in such roles is perhaps too simplistic and that the reality is that women are more sensitive to social aspects of competition than men, and when incentives better reflect those social aspects, any competitiveness gap vanishes.