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Gender differences in the dictator experiment: evidence from the matrilineal Mosuo and the patriarchal Yi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Binglin Gong ,
Huibin Yan  and
Chun-Lei Yang
Binglin Gong*
Affiliation:
School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Huibin Yan*
Affiliation:
Economics Department, UC Santa Cruz, Engineering 2, 401, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
Chun-Lei Yang*
Affiliation:
Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 115, Taiwan
*
binglin@gmail.com; blgong@fudan.edu.cn
huibin@gmail.com
cly@gate.sinica.edu.tw
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Abstract

In this study, we report experimental results on the dictator decision collected in two neighboring ethnic minority groups, the matrilineal Mosuo and the patriarchal Yi, in southwestern China. We follow the double-blind protocol as in Eckel and Grossman (in Handbook of experimental economics results, 1998), who find that women in the U.S. donate more than men. We find this pattern reversed in the Mosuo society and find no gender difference in the Yi society. This is highly suggestive that societal factors play an important role in shaping the gender differences in pro-social behavior such as dictator giving.

Keywords

Gender differenceEthnic differenceDictator gameMatrilineal societyField experiment

JEL classification

Z1: Cultural Economics • Economic Sociology • Economic Anthropology C93: Field Experiments J16: Economics of Gender • Non-labor Discrimination J15: Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants • Non-labor Discrimination
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 302 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-014-9403-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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