Female Neighbors, Test Scores, and Careers

Sofoklis Goulas, Rigissa Megalokonomou and Yi Zhang

No 10112, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: How much does your neighbor impact your test scores and career? In this paper, we examine how an observable characteristic of same-age neighbors—their gender—affects a variety of high school and university outcomes. We exploit randomness in the gender composition of local cohorts at birth from one year to the next. In a setting in which school assignment is based on proximity to residential address, we define as neighbors all same-cohort peers who attend neighboring schools. Using new administrative data for the universe of students in consecutive cohorts in Greece, we find that a higher share of female neighbors improves both male and female students’ high school and university outcomes. We also find that female students are more likely to enroll in STEM degrees and target more lucrative occupations when they are exposed to a higher share of female neighbors. We collect rich qualitative geographic data on communal spaces (e.g., churches, libraries, parks, Scouts and sports fields) to understand whether access to spaces of social interaction drives neighbor effects. We find that communal facilities amplify neighbor effects among females.

Keywords: neighbour gender peer effects; cohort-to-cohort random variation; birth gender composition; geodata; STEM university degrees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 I26 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-net and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Female Neighbors, Test Scores, and Careers (2023)
Working Paper: Female Neighbors, Test Scores, and Careers (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10112

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