Affirmative action, cooperation, and the willingness to work in teams

Affirmative action policies became a popular tool to equalize gender imbalances on the labor market. In this paper, we experimentally investigate whether the implementation of gender quotas in tournaments entail negative spillover effects on subsequent team performance and selection into teams. In three different team environments, we find that the presence of a gender quota does not harm performance and cooperation within teams, and does not weaken people's willingness to work in teams. Our results, thus, provide further evidence that gender quotas can have the desired effect of promoting women without harming efficiency. We further find that while women significantly base their decision to work in teams on their ability as well as the specific team environment, men are largely insensitive to these factors. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved