The gender effects of the new Boston Marathon qualification standards

Abstract

In 2011, the Boston Athletic Association tightened the standards to qualify for the Boston Marathon from 2013 onwards. By simply deducting five minutes and eliminating grace periods, the BAA failed to address differences between female and male qualifying times. Given public outcry and claims of unfairness, our paper tests whether the new standards had unequal gender effects on qualification. Using data on 1.42 million finishers over six years, we find that male qualifying decreased by 5% under the new standards while female qualifying only decreased by 2%, though these effects vary across age divisions.