Professors in Core Science Fields Are Not Always Biased against Women: Evidence from France

Thomas Breda () and Son Thierry Ly

PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL

Abstract: We investigate the link between how male-dominated a field is, and gender bias against women in this field. Taking the entrance exam of a French higher education institution as a natural experiment, we find that evaluation is actually biased in favor of females in more male-dominated subjects (e.g., math, philosophy) and in favor of males in more female-dominated subjects (e.g., literature, biology), inducing a rebalancing of gender ratios between students recruited for research careers in science and humanities majors. Evaluation bias is identified from systematic variations across subjects in the gap between students' nonanonymous oral and anonymous written test scores.

Keywords: higher education institution; Woman (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-10
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

Published in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2015, 7 (4), pp.53-75. ⟨10.1257/app.20140022⟩

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Journal Article: Professors in Core Science Fields Are Not Always Biased against Women: Evidence from France (2015)
Working Paper: Professors in Core Science Fields Are Not Always Biased against Women: Evidence from France (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-01307781

DOI: 10.1257/app.20140022

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