Are Men Less Generous to a Smarter Woman? Evidence from a Dictator Game Experiment

TL;DR

This study investigates whether men are less generous to smarter women in a dictator game, finding no evidence of bias against women with higher IQs and suggesting women with cognitive skills are not disadvantaged in this context.

Contribution

The paper provides experimental evidence that male dictators do not allocate less to smarter women, challenging assumptions about gender bias linked to intelligence in economic decisions.

Findings

Male dictators allocate slightly more to high-IQ female receivers.

Allocations are consistent across mean and distribution.

Results are robust to the beauty premium.

Abstract

Although evidence suggests men are more generous to women than to men, it may stem from paternalism and could reverse when women excel in important skills for one's career success, such as cognitive skills. Using a dictator game, this paper studies whether male dictators allocate less to female receivers than to male receivers when these receivers have higher IQs than dictators. By exogenously varying the receivers' IQ relative to the dictators', I do not find evidence consistent with this hypothesis; if anything, male dictators allocate slightly more to female receivers with higher IQs than to male receivers with equivalent IQs. The results hold both in mean and distribution and are robust to the so-called ``beauty premium.'' Also, female dictators' allocations are qualitatively similar to male dictators. These findings suggest that women who excel in cognitive skills may not receive less favorable treatment than equally intelligent men in the labor market.