Gender differences in team work and team competition

Ivanova-Stenzel R and Kübler D (2011) Gender differences in team work and team competition. Journal of Economic Psychology 32(5): 797–808.

We study whether the gender performance gap is affected by the gender composition of teams. A real-effort experiment is employed with wages based either on the team’s performance, or on the outcome of a competition between teams. We find that, relative to a single-sex environment, gender diversity increases the gender performance gap with team pay whereas it decreases the gap with team competition. The results show that there can be a tension between the objective to maximize overall performance and to minimize gender inequality.