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Title: Performance in Mixed-sex and Single-sex Tournaments: What We Can Learn from Speedboat Races in Japan

Author(s): Alison L Booth and Eiji Yamamura

Publication Date: December 2016

Keyword(s): gender and competition, gender identity, peer effects, tournaments and women's labor participation

Programme Area(s): Labour Economics

Abstract: In speedboat racing in Japan, women racers participate and compete in races under the same conditions as men, and all individuals are randomly assigned to mixed-sex or single-sex groups for each race. We use a sample of over 140,000 observations of individual-level racing records provided by the Japanese Speedboat Racing Association to examine how male-dominated circumstances affect women?s racing performance. We control for individual fixed-effects plus a host of other factors affecting performance including ability-proxies. Our fixed-effects estimates reveal that women?s race-time is slower in mixed-sex races than in all-women races, whereas men racer?s time is faster in mixed-sex races than men-only races. The same result is also found for place-in-race. Moreover, in mixed-sex races, male racers are found to be more ?aggressive? ? as proxied by lane-changing ? in spite of the risk of being penalized if they contravene the rules, whereas women follow less aggressive strategies. We find no difference in disqualifications between genders.

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Bibliographic Reference

Booth, A and Yamamura, E. 2016. 'Performance in Mixed-sex and Single-sex Tournaments: What We Can Learn from Speedboat Races in Japan'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=11685