Men and Money: A Scarcity of Men Leads Women to Care More About Relative Gain

Past studies suggested that sex ratio influences individuals’ economic behaviors; however, the underlying mechanism of this effect remains unclear. In the current work, we examined how sex ratio influenced women’s preference for relative gain over greater absolute gain in the context of games involving resource allocation between oneself and another woman; the role of intrasexual competition in this process was also explored. By experimentally manipulating women’s perceptions of local sex ratio, the present study found that women primed with a female-biased sex ratio (i.e., an excess of women) showed higher levels of intrasexual competition. Exposure to the cue of a scarcity of men also led women to care more about their relative gain compared with absolute gain. The effect of sex ratio on shifts of women’s preference between relative gain and absolute gain was mediated by the strength of women’s competitive attitude toward same-sex others. These findings suggest that, by altering the intensity of female–female competition, sex ratio may have a pronounced effect on women’ economic-related decisions.