Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP7059
Authors: Stepan Jurajda; Daniel Mnich
Abstract: Do women perform worse than equally able men in stressful competitive settings? We ask this question for competitions with a high payoff---admissions to tuition-free selective universities. With data on an entire cohort of Czech students graduating from secondary schools and applying to universities, we show that, compared to men of similar general skills and subject-of-study preferences, women do not shy away from applying to more competitive programs and perform similarly well when competition is less intense, but perform substantially worse (are less likely to be admitted) when applying to very selective universities.
Keywords: admissions; competition; gender gap in performance; test anxiety
JEL Codes: I29; J16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| degree of competition (L13) | gender performance gap (J16) |
| gender performance gap (J16) | selectivity of university programs (I23) |
| gender performance gap (J16) | performance of female applicants (J16) |
| selectivity of university programs (I23) | performance of female applicants (J16) |
| psychological factors (D91) | gender performance gap (J16) |
| competition (L13) | performance of female applicants (J16) |
| test anxiety (C12) | performance of female applicants (J16) |