Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/331638 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 12173
Publisher: 
Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research - CESifo GmbH, Munich
Abstract: 
Men and women differ systematically in measures of patience, risk-taking, trust, and prosociality. While literature documents such gender gaps in numerous countries throughout the world, recent work suggests an association between these gender gaps and economic development, based on evidence of larger gender gaps in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies. However, little is known about how these gender gaps evolve and whether they indeed widen as countries develop. To examine this question, we analyze how within-country gender gaps in patience, risk-taking, trust, and prosociality have evolved across birth cohorts worldwide. We compare these gender gaps across country-period-cohort cells using two survey data sets that cover 460,000 people in more than 100 countries. Our results document that gender gaps in patience, risk-taking, trust, and prosociality have declined across birth cohorts. This evidence rejects the notion that these gender gaps widen as countries develop and instead points to a decline in socioeconomic differences between men and women.
Subjects: 
preferences
personality traits
gender gaps
cohort trends
JEL: 
D01
J10
J11
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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