Replication data for Willingness to compete, gender and career choices along the whole ability distribution

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Thomas Buser, University of Amsterdam; Noemi Peter, University of Groningen; Stefan C. Wolter, University of Bern

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  repl_package 06/16/2022 04:21:PM
LICENSE text replication package.txt text/plain 15 KB 06/16/2022 09:38:AM

Project Citation: 

Buser, Thomas, Peter, Noemi, and Wolter, Stefan C. Replication data for Willingness to compete, gender and career choices along the whole ability distribution. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-06-16. https://doi.org/10.3886/E170641V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Abstract: We expand the scope of the literature on willingness to compete by asking how it varies with academic ability and whether and how it predicts career choices at different ability levels. The literature so far has mainly focused on career choices made by students at the top of the ability distribution, particularly in academic institutions. We experimentally elicit the willingness to compete of 1500 Swiss lower-secondary school students at all ability levels and link it to the study choice that students make upon finishing compulsory school. Our analysis of the relationship between willingness to compete and the study choice considers the full set of study options, including the options in vocational education. We find that willingness to compete predicts which study option high-ability students choose, not only among academic specializations but also among vocational careers, and, importantly, it also predicts whether low-ability boys pursue upper-secondary education upon finishing compulsory schooling. Our second main contribution is to systematically explore how willingness to compete varies with academic ability. We find that high-ability boys, but not girls, are substantially more willing to compete compared to all other children. As a consequence, the gender gap in willingness to compete is significantly lower among low-ability students than among high-ability students. Overall, our study highlights that insights from the literature on willingness to compete are relevant for a broader set of policy questions, populations and choices.
Funding Sources:  View help for Funding Sources Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI)



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V1 [2022-06-16]

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