Many studies have found women to be more risk-averse than men.  Some have suggested that this difference in attitudes toward risk-taking could partially explain the difference in career choices between men and women, which could, in turn, lead to the gender wage gap. What is the origin of these gaps? Are these biological differences, or are they the result of social environment? how malleable is this gender gap in risk preference and what mechanisms could affect risk attitudes?

In our study, my coauthor, Sharon Xuejing Zuo and I seek to answer these questions by studying the risk-taking behaviors among the children of two ethnic groups in Yongning township, in Yunnan Province of China, with nearly opposite gender norms. Yunnan provides us with a rare setting in which children of the matrilineal Mosuo and the traditionally patriarchal Han attend the same schools, are taught by the same teachers, and interact daily.  Our sample includes first- to fifth-grade, and seventh grade Mosuo and Han children, a total of 511 students. Within this setting, we examine how intermingling between children from these disparate cultural backgrounds would affect their respective gendered behavior.

The Mosuo and Han differ in many ways, but most notably they have distinctly different gender norms. The Mosuo are the only ethnic minority group in China that maintains a matrilineal culture.  A Mosuo family typically includes members bound by the ties of maternal kin, with the grandmother generally being the household head. Mosuo children are raised by the mother's household, and the children's father is often excluded from the household. In Mosuo society, women play an important role in the family decision-making. Conversely, Han Chinese have been influenced by Confucianism for thousands of years. The traditional Han family system is patriarchal and patrilineal. The household head of the family is typically the oldest male, who is responsible for major decisions. Kinship in Han families is passed down through the male descent line.

To elicit students’ risk preference, we conducted survey and incentivized experiments.  Students are presented 6 lotteries, (3, 3), (2.5, 5), (2, 6), (1.5, 7.5), (0.5, 9), and (0, 10).  Each lottery has a 50/50 chance of winning high or low awards. Students are instructed to choose one lottery choice, and that at the end of the experiment, they will be paid based on their choice and the color of the ball they draw.

What we find is that at age 7, Mosuo boys are slightly more risk-averse than Mosuo girls, but this difference is not statistically significant (p-value=0.12). However, as eventually this gender gap narrows and eventually Mosuo girls become more risk averse than Mosuo boys by age 11 (p-value=0.004). In contrast, Han girls are more risk-averse than Han boys at age 7 (p-value=0.08), but by 11 and 12, there is no difference between Han girls and Han boys risk taking behavior. Many reasons could contribute to the emergence of this pattern for the Mosuo. For example, it could be due to mainstream media, which are predominantly Han. Or it could be due to the way teachers treat students. Unfortunately, with our dataset, we cannot look the causal impact of these factors on risk taking behaviors.  However, we can look the importance of peers. We exploit the fact that some students’ cohorts happen to be a Mosuo majority cohort while others happen to be in a Mosuo minority cohort. We examine whether their ethnic group being a majority or minority in their cohort would affect their risk taking behavior over time.  We find that for Mosuo girls, if they are the minority in their cohort, the convergence (becoming more risk averse) would happen faster than if they were a majority in the cohort.  For Han girls, they would become more risk loving only if they are in the Mosuo majority cohorts.  This analysis suggests the importance of socialization on their risk-taking behavior.  In the middle school sample, we use random assignment of roommates to examine how rooming with people from other ethnicity would affect one’s risk-taking behaviors. We find that Mosuo boys would become more risk loving, when they room with more non-Mosuo roommates.

The article is published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences

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