Economic scarcity often leads to decision-making and cognitive biases. Drawing on scarcity theory and life history theory, this research systematically examined how perceived economic scarcity influences gender discrimination and how life history strategies moderate this relationship across four studies. Study 1, based on data from the Chinese General Social Survey（CGSS2021） (Study 1a) and a questionnaire survey (Study 1b), found that perceived economic scarcity positively predicted explicit gender-discriminatory attitudes. Study 2 employed a Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) to demonstrate that participants exposed to financial scarcity exhibited stronger implicit gender bias in the hiring context. Study 3 employed a scenario experiment and revealed that participants in scarcity conditions scored significantly higher on explicit gender discrimination measures. Study 4 further demonstrated the moderating role of life history strategies: individuals with fast life history strategies showed stronger gender discrimination under economic scarcity, whereas those with slow strategies buffered this effect. Integrating ideas from scarcity cognition and evolutionary psychology, this research explains how economic scarcity Influences gender bias and offers new insights into the relationship between economic conditions and social prejudice.

financial scarcity')">"> financial scarcity, gender discrimination/sexism, life history strategy, SC-IAT