An experimental application upon the factors of gender wage gap: Attitudes changing according to gender in a competitive and risky environment

The labor composition is a very significant determinant of that country's GDP. To provide maximum output, expected that all individuals forming the workforce will participate in the market unhindered and fully. Therefore, excluding women's labor, which constitutes half of the labor force, from the market and marginalizing them can be evaluated as an irrational attitude. In this context, it should be emphasized that the sociological costs of gender-based issues are only the tip of the iceberg, and the main costs have economic dimensions. The gender wage gap is one of the obstacles to overcome to minimize the mentioned costs. There is an unexplained part of the gender wage gap in the analyses by using traditional methods in the literature. Experimental economics try to fill this literature deficiency with alternative approaches. Within the scope of this study, the internal factors that affect the gender wage gap are examined by applying experimental economics methods. Individuals' attitudes towards competition and risk are included in the analysis in the category of internal factors, and it is determined whether there is a gender difference in these attitudes. On the other hand, it is tried to determine which age group these factors are influential. Based on the argument that this type of tendencies may be a conclusion of "learned behaviors," students aged 5-6 and 13-14 who go to private or public schools in Istanbul are included in the sample. Both of these age groups are assigned tasks in the context of experimental economics. T-test and Mann-Whitney U test are applied to the data obtained from these tasks. The empirical results show that the competition tendencies of girls and boys are equal to each other in the 5-6 age group. For the 13-14 age group, the competition attitudes of girls are relatively low compared to boys. This difference is considerably small, and it is not statistically significant. This condition also applies to risk attitudes. A lottery game consisting of alternative options is used to identify the participants' risk attitudes. According to the results, in the 13-14 age group, male students gain relatively more than female students. However, this is vice versa for private school students. Furthermore, although male students perform relatively lower than female students, they compete much more. It is assumed that the students' attitudes in the competitive and risky environment are affected by socio-cultural factors. For this reason, information about parents' secondary and tertiary education obtained from parent surveys is included in the analysis as a determinant. Results show that the parents who have secondary or higher education do not affect the male student's decisions. However, the fact that the mother and father graduating higher education affects the female student's competitive attitude and risk attitude. Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman's Rho correlation analysis show that this relationship is positive and statistically significant.