Women Running for Office Are Less Risk Averse than Men: Evidence from Portugal

Prior work shows that women are, on average, more risk averse than men. This evidence has been used to theorize about gender differences in elite behavior. However, whether differences in risk aversion hold among the subset of citizens willing to run for office remains an open question. We report a preregistered experiment with parliamentary candidates in Portugal and find that women candidates are less risk averse than men candidates. This effect is driven by risk preferences in public investments and is not explained by gender differences in political experience. The findings are consistent with a process of gendered (self-)selection in which women risk-takers are disproportionately attracted to enter a men-dominated career and run for office. Despite requiring future validation in different contexts, the evidence highlights the challenges of extrapolating from citizen samples to study elite behavior and suggests that risk perceptions are a relevant supply-side determinant of women representation.