Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T19:33:48.394Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Class, Ethnicity, and Cooperation Among Women: Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment in Lebanon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2020

Leslie Marshall  and
Laura Paler Open the ORCID record for Laura Paler [Opens in a new window]
Leslie Marshall*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Center for Sustainable Business, Joseph. M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Laura Paler
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
*
*Corresponding author. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While recent evidence suggests that women exhibit a high capacity to cooperate in all-women groups, existing research focuses on how women cooperate among themselves versus in mixed-gender situations. We still know little, however, about how social differences among women affect their collective action capacity. We examine this by implementing a public goods experiment in Lebanon in which 713 women and men were randomly assigned to play in same-gender groups that were either homogeneous or heterogeneous in their class and sectarian compositions. We show that women contribute significantly less in mixed-class groups while men contribute more, reinforcing that this pattern is unique to women. We also demonstrate that class differences can undermine women’s cooperation more than sectarian differences. These findings highlight how social differences – and class differences in particular – can impede women’s collective action capacity, revealing the potential barriers to building broad, gender-based coalitions to advance women’s rights and interests.

Keywords

genderclassethnicitycollective actioncooperationpublic goods experimentLebanon
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Spring 2021 , pp. 26 - 40
Copyright
© The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We are especially indebted to Sami Atallah, Director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS), for making this project possible. We are also grateful to Joanna Fayed, Zeina Hawa, and Zeina Helou for their tireless help with implementation and to Guy Grossman, Melanie Hughes, Kris Kanthak, and Lucy Martin for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. This project was made possible by funding that LCPS received from the Embassy of Norway. The authors are not aware of any conflicts of interest. This project is covered under University of Pittsburgh IRB PRO15060167. The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate the analysis in this article are available at the Journal of Experimental Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at doi: 10.7910/DVN/SWYQ26.

References

Abadie, Alberto, Athey, Susan, Imbens, Guido W. and Wooldridge, Jeffrey. 2017. When Should You Adjust Standard Errors for Clustering? Working paper no. 17-030. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.02926.pdf CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andreoni, James and Vesterlund, Lise. 2001. Which Is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism. Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(1): 293–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balliet, Daniel, Li, Norman P., Macfarlan, Shane J. and Van Vugt, Mark. 2011. Sex Differences in Cooperation: A Meta-Analytic Review of Social Dilemmas. Psychological Bulletin 137(6): 881–909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Balliet, Daniel, Wu, Junhui and De Dreu, Carsten K. W.. 2014. Ingroup Favoritism in Cooperation: A Meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 140(6): 1556–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beall, Jo. 2005. Decentralizing Government and Decentering Gender: Lessons from Local Government Reform in South Africa. Politics & Society 33(2): 253–76. Retrieved from http://pas.sagepub.com/cgi/doi/10.1177/0032329205275194 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckwith, Karen. 2011. Interests, Issues, and Preferences: Women’s Interests and Epiphenomena of Activism. Politics & Gender 7(3): 424–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benstead, Lindsay J. 2016. Why Quotas Are Needed to Improve Women’s Access to Services in Clientelistic Regimes. Governance 29(2): 185–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benstead, Lindsay J., Jamal, Amaney A. and Lust, Ellen. 2015. Is It Gender, Religiosity or Both? A Role Contiguity Theory of Candidate Electability in Transitional Tunisia. Perspectives on Politics 13(1): 74–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berge, Lars Ivar Oppedal, Bjorvatn, Kjetil, Galle, Simon, Miguel, Edward, Posner, Daniel, Tungodden, Bertil and Zhang, Kelly. 2015. How Strong are Ethnic Preferences? NBER Working Paper w21715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berge, Lars Ivar Oppedal, Juniwaty, Kartika Sari and Sekei, Linda Helgesson. 2016. Gender Composition and Group Dynamics: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment with Microfinance Clients. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 131: 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown-Iannuzzi, Jazmin L., Lundberg, Kristjen B. and McKee, Stephanie. 2017. Political Action in the Age of High-Economic Inequality: A Multilevel Approach. Social Issues and Policy Review 11(1): 232–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckley, Edward and Croson, Rachel. 2006. Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Voluntary Provision of Linear Public Goods. Journal of Public Economics 90(4–5): 935–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cardenas, Juan Camilo. 2003. Real Wealth and Experimental Cooperation: Evidence from Field Experiments. Journal of Development Economics 70(2): 263–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Kenneth S., Mestelman, Stuart, Moir, Rob and Muller, R. Andrew. 1996. The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods under Varying Income Distributions. The Canadian Journal of Economics 29(1): 54–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaudhuri, Ananish. 2016. Recent Advances in Experimental Studies of Social Dilemma Games. Games 7(7): 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chowdhury, Subhasish M., Jeon, Joo Young and Ramalingam, Abhijit. 2016. Identity and Group Conflict. European Economic Review 90: 107–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croson, Rachel and Gneezy, Uri. 2009. Gender Differences in Preferences. Journal of Economic Literature 47(2): 448–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DuBois, Ellen C. 1998. Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Rights. New York, NY: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Eagly, Alice H. and Wood, Wendy. 1991. Explaining Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17(3): 306–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James and Humphreys, Macartan. 2017. Why Do Women Cooperate More in Women’s Groups? WIDER Working Paper 2017/163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischbacher, Urs, Gächter, Simon and Fehr, Ernst. 2001. Are People Conditionally Cooperative? Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment. Economics Letters 71(3): 397–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geagea, Nayla and Fakih, Lama. 2015. Unequal and Unprotected: Women’s Rights under Lebanese Personal Status Laws. Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Geier, Kathleen, Reed, Betsy, Leonard, Sarah and Douglas, Emily. 2014. Does Feminism Have a Class Problem? Retrieved from: https://www.thenation.com/article/does-feminism-have-class-problem/ Google Scholar
Greig, Fiona and Bohnet, Iris. 2009. Exploring Gendered Behavior in the Field with Experiments: Why Public Goods Are Provided by Women in a Nairobi Slum. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 70(1–2): 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habyarimana, James, Humphreys, Macartan, Posner, Daniel and Weinstein, Jeremy. 2009. Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Hyde, Janet Shibley. 2014. Gender Similarities and Differences. Annual Review of Psychology 65: 373–398.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kanthak, Kristin and Krause, George A.. 2010. Valuing Diversity in Political Organizations: Gender and Token Minorities in the U.S. House of Representatives. American Journal of Political Science 54(4): 839–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanthak, Kristin and Krause, George A.. 2011. Coordination Dilemmas and the Valuation of Women in the U.S. Senate: Reconsidering the Critical Mass Problem. Journal of Theoretical Politics 23(2): 188–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kingston, Paul W. T. 2013. Reproducing Sectarianism: Advocacy Networks and the Politics of Civil Society in Postwar Lebanon. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Klar, Samara. 2018. When Common Identities Decrease Trust: An Experimental Study of Partisan Women. American Journal of Political Science 62(3): 610–622.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledyard, John O. 1995. Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research. In Handbook of Experimental Economics, eds. Kagel, J. H. and Roth, A. E. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press chapter 2, 111–193. Retrieved from http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwppe/9405003.html Google Scholar
Mahdawi, Dalila. 2010. Posh Women’s Rights in the Middle East. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/01/new-arab-woman-forum-elitist-club Google Scholar
Manstead, Antony S. R. 2018. The Psychology of Social Class: How Socioeconomic Status Impacts Thought, Feelings, and Behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology 57(2): 267–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marshall, Leslie. 2019. Three Essays on the Possibilities for Realizing Women’s ‘Collective Interests’. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Marshall, Leslie and Paler, Laura. 2020. Replication data for: Class, Ethnicity, and Cooperation Among Women: Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment in Lebanon. Harvard Dataverse. doi: 10.7910/DVN/SWYQ26 Google Scholar
Martinsson, Peter, Villegas-Palacio, Clara and Wollbrant, Conny. 2015. Cooperation and Social Classes: Evidence from Colombia. Social Choice and Welfare 45(4): 829–848.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCammon, Holly J. 2003. “Out of the Parlors and into the Streets”: The Changing Tactical Repertoire of the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movements. Social Forces 81(3): 787–818.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miguel, Edward and Gugerty, Mary Kay. 2005. Ethnic Diversity, Social Sanctions, and Public Goods in Kenya. Journal of Public Economics 89(11–12): 2325–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paler, Laura, Marshall, Leslie and Atallah, Sami. 2020. How Cross-Cutting Discussion Shapes Support for Ethnic Politics: Evidence from an Experiment in Lebanon. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 15(1): 33–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paxton, Pamela and Hughes, Melanie M.. 2016. Women, Politics, and Power: A Global Perspective. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Daniel. 2004. The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi. American Political Science Review 98(4): 529–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, Daniel N. 2017. When and Why Do Some Social Cleavages Become Politically Salient Rather Than Others? Ethnic and Racial Studies 40(12): 2001–2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raihani, Nichola J. and Bshary, Redouan. 2015. Why Humans Might Help Strangers. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 9(39): 1–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Salameh, Riwa. 2014. Gender Politics in Lebanon and the Limits of Legal Reformism. Civil Society Knowledge Centre, Lebanon Support. doi: 10.28943/CSR.001.007 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solow, John and Kirkwood, Nicole. 2002. Group identity and gender in public goods experiments. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 48: 403–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The United Nations Development Programme. 2018. Gender Inequality Index. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii Google Scholar
The World Economic Forum. 2018. The Global Gender Gap Report. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2018 Google Scholar
UN Women. 2017. Across Divides to Advance Women’s Rights through Dialogue: Experiences from the Ground. UN Women Cairo, Egypt. Retrieved from https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2016/all/across-divisions-to-advance-womens-rights-upd Google Scholar
Van Vugt, Mark, De Cremer, David and Janssen, Dirk P.. 2007. Gender Differences in Cooperation and Competition: The Male-Warrior Hypothesis. Psychological Science 18(1): 19–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wantchekon, Leonard. 2003. Clientelism and Voting Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Benin. World Politics 55(3): 399–422.Google Scholar
Weldon, Laurel. 2011. When Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Economic Forum. 2017. The Global Gender Gap Report 2017. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Marshall and Paler supplementary material

Marshall and Paler supplementary material

Download Marshall and Paler supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 560.3 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Marshall and Paler Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SWYQ26
Link