Gender differences in chess

comparative effect of age and country of origin among chess players by gender

Abstract

Historically, it has been accepted as statistical evidence that women have a lower chess performance than men. Multiple theories have been proposed to support this assumption: the lower participation of women in chess relative to men, the different cognitive abilities according to gender, the lower number of games played by women when leaving this discipline earlier than men, the lower participation of women in deliberate practice activities, or by age and the number of games played in a given period. This article analyzes the effect of the difference between female and male elo from 2012 to 2023, the chess performance gap between men and women by country, and the variation in the average performance of chess players by gender and age. It is shown that the variables of the chess player’s place of residence and age have an effect on the average performance of chess players, far greater than that traditionally associated with gender. In fact, in this article it has been determined that there is an age period (between 34 and 42 years old) in which women play chess better than men, on average.