Risk-taking ability at different development stages: a comparative study across biological genders

Abstract

The importance of healthy risk-tolerance is critical for success as an entrepreneur and a leader. However, women have been consistently rated low for risk-taking ability (Gary Charness, 2012; Peggy D. Dwyer, 2002) which is generally perceived as one of the contributory factors to the systematic dearth of women leaders and entrepreneurs. Studies have indicated that women are both unwilling to take risks and are also perceived as more risk-averse (Sundheim, 2013). This may have an innocuous, straight-forward cause-effect relationship that women’s unwillingness to take risk leads to their being perceived as risk-averse. However, possibilities for an alternative causal relationship may also exist where the perception of women being risk-averse leads to risk-tolerance in women being either unrecognized or even disincentivized. Therefore, it becomes necessary to examine if these differences exist at all (Sylvia Maxfield, 2010; Thekla Morgenroth, 2017). Further if they do, are these differences inherent or do they appear at some later development stage in an individual’s life.