Spatial Variations in the Impact of Covid-19 on the Educational Gender Gap in English Secondary Schools

Bruna Campisano, Giuseppe Migali and Steve Bradley

No 415678839, Working Papers from Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department

Abstract: We investigate the effects of Covid-19 on spatial variations in gender differences in educational attainment in English secondary schools. Spatial variations in various measures of Covid-19 incidence rates at the Travel-to-Work-Areas are explored. Since all parts of the UK were affected by Covid-19, spatial variations in Covid-19 are regarded as variations in the ’dose’ of the virus - the higher the dose the greater the impact. Employing a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) framework with fixed effects for year, school and TTWA, and controlling for selection effects, we estimate the causal effect on the gender gap in high school test scores at age 16. We find that, when comparing schools in TTWAs in the treatment to their counterparts in the control group, there is a statistically significant and positive effect on the educational gender gap in favor of females of between 0.3 and 0.6 points. Girls at the upper end of the attainment distribution achieved much better scores. Robustness checks show that school composition and area effects are important. We explore the implications for education policy.

Keywords: Covid-19; Educational Gender Gap; School Performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I19 I2 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-gen and nep-ure
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