Gender, context and competition: Experimental evidence from rural and urban Uganda

• We analyze the willingness to compete among secondary school students in an urban and a rural context in Uganda.
• We find no significant gender bias in competitiveness in the urban context.
• We find that females in the rural context are significantly less competitive than males.
• Our results hold when controlling for knowledge, confidence, attitude towards risk, and individual and household background variables.

We analyze the willingness to compete among secondary school students in an urban and a rural context in Uganda. We find no significant gender bias in competitiveness in the urban context, while in the rural context females are significantly less competitive than males. The willingness to compete among males is not sensitive to location. These results hold when controlling for knowledge, confidence, attitude towards risk, and individual and household background variables. Our analysis suggests that context is an important determinant of willingness to compete, and we propose that attitudes towards gender equality may be an important factor in shaping these preferences for females.