Competitive Pressure Widens the Gender Gap in Performance: Evidence from a Two-stage Competition in Mathematics
研究发现在两阶段数学淘汰赛中，尽管女生在校数学成绩更高，但竞赛中性别差距逆转，且从第一阶段到第二阶段，竞争压力加剧导致女性表现进一步下滑。
Abstract In two-stage elimination math contests, participants from four different age groups compete to pass from stage 1 to stage 2 and later to be among the winners. Although female participants have higher maths grades at school the gender gap reverses in the two stages of the contests. More importantly, following the same individual participant across different stages, we find that the gender gap in performance increases from stage 1 to stage 2. The increase in female underperformance is attributed to higher competitive pressure and alternative explanations based on selection, discrimination and differences in reaction to increasing difficulty are ruled out.