Discrimination at Young Age: Experimental Evidence from Preschool Children
CESifo, Munich, 2018
CESifo Working Paper No. 7396
Discrimination is an ubiquitous phenomenon in many societies, but little is known about its origins in childhood. In a framed field experiment, we let 142 three to six-year old preschool children allocate a fixed endowment between an in-group and an out-group receiver in two domains (gender and group affiliation). Discrimination is prevalent in our subjects, since they allocate more than half of their endowment to the in-group. The extent of discrimination does not differ between domains, suggesting that it is a universal, as opposed to a domain-specific, trait. Analyzing age dynamics, we find that discrimination develops with age.
Economics of Education
Behavioural Economics