Gender at work: Incentives and self-sorting

•This paper examines gender in the job market.•The experiment highlights gender differences.•Women fail to signal their type, while men do not.•Women's effort is independent of the payment.•Men respond to the monetary incentives.

This paper analyses the relationship between workers’ gender and monetary incentives in an experimental setting based on a double-tournament scheme. The participants must choose between a piece-rate payment or a performance prize. The results show that women fail to reveal their type, and are less sensitive than men to the monetary incentives of the tournament. In addition, the tournament scheme induces males, but not females, to signal their ability and to select the contract which is more profitable for them.