Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments February 17, 2023 erstellt
Beschreibung:
In the United States, there are significant differences in the socio-economic status of gay and lesbian individuals relative to their heterosexual counterparts. In this paper, we explore a channel that may contribute to these disparities: the willingness to compete. Specifically, we study the relationship between sexual orientation, gender, and competitiveness. We document a novel sexual orientation gap in willingness to compete, wherein gay and lesbian individuals compete less than their heterosexual counterparts. Furthermore, we find that the gender gap in competitiveness does not depend on sexual orientation: both lesbian women and heterosexual women compete less than their male counterparts. The gaps in competitiveness are mostly explained by differences in self-confidence with the exception of the gender gap for lesbian and gay participants. Even after we control for various observables, lesbian women are significantly less likely to compete compared to gay men. Our findings may shed light on the causes of socio-economic disparities that sexual minorities experience and suggest avenues for policies to improve their economic lives