Gender Differences in Market Competitiveness in a Real Workplace: Evidence from Performance- based Pay Tournaments among Teachers

Recent lab and field experiments suggest that women are less effective than men in a competitive environment. In this paper I examine how individual performance in a real work place is affected by a competitive environment and by its gender mix. The competition is among math, English and Language teachers who participated in a rank order tournament that rewarded teachers with large cash bonuses based on the test performance of their classes. The evidence suggests that based on various performance criteria there were no gender differences in performance under competition: neither between teachers in competition groups with only female teachers nor groups with both genders. Regarding mechanisms that explain these results, I found no differences by either gender or by the gender mix of the competition group in teachers’ awareness and knowledge of the program and in effort and teaching methods. Women however were more pessimistic about the effectiveness of teachers’ performance pay, and more realistic than men about their likelihood of winning bonuses.