Discuss the evidence on whether gender differences in taste for risk and competition can explain part of the observed gender gap in labour market outcomes.

Abstract

This essay will be exploring whether there are any discrepancies between genders, when observing the differences in taste for risk and competition when it comes to applying for certain job roles and if the difference in gender has an impact on their decision making. Generally, in this paper, the discussion mainly focuses on the lack of engagement of women in the labour market for many decades primarily and the reasons behind this. The first argument of this paper sets out the factors that have impacted the gender gap in the labour market while discussing numerical figures to support the argument. The second section explores the attitudes of women towards risk and competition when it comes to choosing a job followed by the difference in taste and risk that can influence a women’s decision. Lastly, a set of statistical experiment was used to understand the differences in taste for risk and competition and the analysis of the first experiment concluded that ‘men are more tolerant of risk than women’ whilst the alternative experiment did not discover a disparity in the performance between both genders.