High Performing Peers and Female STEM Choices in School

Pierre Mouganie and Yaojing Wang

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Women have historically been underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs. There are concerns that the persistence of this gap over time is in part due to path dependence and the historical lack of high-performing women in these fields. This paper uses administrative data from China to examine the extent to which the presence of high-performing peers in mathematics affects the likelihood that women choose a science track during high school. Results indicate that exposure to a higher proportion of high-performing females increases girls' likelihood of majoring in STEM, while exposure to more high-performing males reduces it. There is little evidence that boys' major decisions are affected by their peers. Our results indicate that high-achieving girls in quantitative fields may have a role model or affirmation effect that encourages their female classmates to pursue a path in science.

Keywords: STEM; Peer Quality; Gender Effects; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I26 J01 J70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-10-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-gen and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/81860/1/MPRA_paper_81860.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: High-Performing Peers and Female STEM Choices in School (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:81860

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