Risk aversion for decisions under uncertainty: Are there gender differences?

•We do not find gender differences in risk aversion for decisions under uncertainty.•We do find that women are more risk averse than men in objective probability gambles.•We present a simple model for comparing group differences in risk aversion.•Gender differences in risk aversion may depend on the source of uncertainty.

It has become well accepted that women are more risk averse than men. For objective probability gambles, typically used in eliciting risk aversion, we find women generally have a lower valuation than men, thus exhibiting greater risk aversion. This paper investigates whether this finding extends to decisions under uncertainty – where probabilities are not given and individuals may assign different probabilities to the same event (e.g. outcomes of award shows or sporting events).We find that for decisions under uncertainty, men and women value the bets similarly, both before and after controlling for participants' subjective probabilities.