Calvin Cochran (University of California, Irvine), Cailin O'Connor (University of California, Irvine)
Many societies have state norms of equity---that those who make symmetric social contributions deserve symmetric rewards. Despite this, there are widespread patterns of social inequity, especially along gender and racial lines. It is often the case that members of certain social groups receive greater rewards per contribution than others. In this paper, we draw on evolutionary game theory to show that the emergence of this sort of inequitable convention is far from surprising. In simple cultural evolutionary models, inequity is much more likely to emerge than equity, despite the presence of stable, equitable outcomes that groups might instead learn.
