Leaving Boys Behind: Gender Disparities in High Academic Achievement

Nicole Fortin, Philip Oreopoulos and Shelley Phipps

No 19331, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using three decades of data from the "Monitoring the Future" cross-sectional surveys, this paper shows that, from the 1980s to the 2000s, the mode of girls' high school GPA distribution has shifted from "B" to "A", essentially "leaving boys behind" as the mode of boys' GPA distribution stayed at "B". In a reweighted Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of achievement at each GPA level, we find that gender differences in post-secondary expectations, controlling for school ability, and as early as 8th grade are the most important factor accounting for this trend. Increases in the growing proportion of girls who aim for a post-graduate degree are sufficient to account for the increase over time in the proportion of girls earning "A's". The larger relative share of boys obtaining "C" and C+" can be accounted for by a higher frequency of school misbehavior and a higher proportion of boys aiming for a two-year college degree.

JEL-codes: I20 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-edu and nep-ure
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Published as Leaving Boys Behind Gender Disparities in High Academic Achievement Nicole M. Fortin (bio), Philip Oreopoulos (bio) and Shelley Phipps (bio) Journal of Human Resources Volume 50, Number 3, Summer 2015 -- Fiftieth Anniversary

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