Are Women as Likely to Take Risks and Compete? Behavioral Findings from Central Vietnam

Using controlled experiments to compare the risk attitude and willingness to compete of husbands and wives in 500 couples in rural Vietnam, we find that women are more risk averse than men and that, compared to men, women are less likely to choose to compete, irrespectively of how likely they are to succeed. Our findings suggest that women are more likely to self-select into economic activities with lower expected returns to avoid setups that require them to be more competitive or have less predictable outcomes and that development programs concerned with lifting women out of poverty should consider these differences. JEL classification: C93, D81, J16, O12