When Parents Decide: Gender Differences in Competitiveness

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Tungodden, Jonas; Willen, Alexander
• 署名单位: Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/721801
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: MOTHERS; fathers; gap; transmission; matrilineal; INVESTMENT; preference; WORKPLACE; attitudes; CHILDREN

摘要

Parents make important choices for their children in many areas of life, yet the empirical literature on this topic is scarce. We study parents' competitiveness choices for their children by combining two large-scale artifactual field experiments with high-quality longitudinal administrative data. We document three main sets of findings. First, parents choose more competition for their sons than daughters. Second, this gender difference can largely be explained by parents' beliefs about their children's competitiveness preferences. Third, parents' choices predict children's later-in-life educational outcomes. Taken together, these findings provide novel evidence on the role of parents in shaping children's long-term outcomes.