Gender differences in the choice of field of study and the relevance of income information. Insights from a field experiment

Finger, Claudia; Solga, Heike; Ehlert, Martin; Rusconi, Alessandra

doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2019.100457

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Previous research on similar counseling interventions (e.g., Le et al, 2016;Moore & Cruce, 2019;Turner & Lapan, 2005) has rarely employed experimental designs. Studies that have used random assignment have mostly focused on short info treatments of selected aspects of college enrollment, such as costs and benefits (Barone et al, 2017;Ehlert et al, 2017;Finger et al, 2020). To date, experimental evaluations of more comprehensive counseling services remain rare and therefore constitute an important gap in the literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do students need more information to leave the beaten paths? The impact of a counseling intervention on high school students’ choice of major

Piepenburg

Fervers

2021

High Educ

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Despite an almost endless list of possible study programs and occupational opportunities, high school students frequently focus on pursuing a small number of well-known study programs. Students also often follow gender-typical paths and restrict their attention to study programs in which the majority of students consists of same-gendered people. This choice pattern has far-reaching consequences, including persistent gender segregation and an undersupply of graduates in emerging sectors of the industry. Building on rational choice and social psychological theory, we argue that this pattern partly occurs due to information deficits that may be altered by counseling interventions. To assess this claim empirically, we evaluated the impact of a counseling intervention on the intended choice of major among high school students in Germany by means of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). We estimate the effect by instrumental variable estimation to account for two-sided non-compliance. Our results show that the intervention has increased the likelihood that participants will consider less well-known or gender-atypical study programs, particularly for high school students with lower starting levels of information. Supplementary analyses confirm that a positive impact on information seems to be one of the relevant causal mechanisms. These results suggest that counseling services have the potential to guide high school students to less gender-typical and well-known majors, possibly reducing gender segregation and smoothing labor market transitions after graduation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do students need more information to leave the beaten paths? The impact of a counseling intervention on high school students’ choice of major

Piepenburg

Fervers

2021

High Educ

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“…Their aspirations can be classified as somewhat realistic as they probably reflect the realistic accessibility of career choices to some extent because they already decided against leaving school early and switching to a vocational training. With respect to subject choices in tertiary education, however, the students' aspirations may still be influenced by idealistic preferences and considerations of suitability rather than accessibility of jobs on which students often lack information (Finger et al, 2020;Peter et al, 2016).…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered occupational aspirations among German youth: Role of parental occupations, gender division of labour, and family structure

Law

Schober

2022

JFamRes

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Objective: This study investigates how multiple domains of parental gender role socialisation as well as parent-child relationships and family structure may shape adolescents’ gendered occupational aspirations. Background: Young people with gender-typical aspirations have a higher chance of choosing gender-typical post-secondary education fields and are more likely to work in gender-typical occupations as adults. Gender norms, family structures and parent-child relationships have undergone profound changes in recent decades. We extend the intergenerational transmission literature by considering whether the influence of parental role modelling may vary according to parent-child relationships and family structure. Method: We draw on data from 2,235 adolescents from the German Socio-Economic Panel and apply logistic regressions. Results: Children whose fathers were employed in gender-typical jobs had a greater likelihood of aspiring to a more gender-typical occupation. This relationship was not significant among sons who did not live continuously with both parents since birth, who were generally more likely to aspire to gender-typical occupations. Surprisingly, the gender-typicality of fathers' occupations seemed more influential among daughters whose parents had separated than among those who lived continuously with both parents. Regarding the parental gender division of paid and unpaid work, only mothers' continuous non-employment was associated with daughters being more likely to aspire to a gender-typical occupation. Conclusion: On the whole, our findings suggest a rather weak influence of parental gender role modelling on children’s persistently gendered occupational aspirations in Germany. Yet, our study extends existing family research by pointing to significant variations across family structures.

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“…The phenomenon of being unconsciously exposed to certain stimuli that influence a subsequent response is called behavioral priming or the priming effect (among others, [1,2]). Exposure to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) information changed motivations towards STEM [3][4][5][6][7].…”

Section: Changing Attitudes By Providing Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A study targeted upper secondary school students and followed them for five years in Germany investigated whether providing income information changed high school students’ choice of field of study [ 7 ]. For the experimental group, they gave a 20-minute presentation on income information that included the relationship between a major subject of study and later income as well as a one-page flyer with general information on college attendance and a list of websites for financial aid.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of providing gender equality information on students’ motivations to choose STEM

et al. 2021

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The social climate for women studying STEM subjects is changing, but the proportion of women taking STEM subjects in Japan is small. Only 27.9% of university students in the department of science is women in 2019. In this study, we used an online survey to investigate whether randomly providing three types of gender equality information increased the motivation of junior high school students to choose STEM subjects and the motivation of their parents to support that choice. Information on STEM, especially about social equality, and information on math stereotypes and STEM occupations, increased students’ motivations for studying STEM. This suggests that providing gender equality information is an effective way to change students’ attitudes toward STEM.

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Gender differences in the choice of field of study and the relevance of income information. Insights from a field experiment

Abstract: Gender differences in the choice of field of study and the relevance of income information. Insights from a field experiment Research in Social Stratification and Mobility

Cited by 19 publications

References 57 publications

Do students need more information to leave the beaten paths? The impact of a counseling intervention on high school students’ choice of major

Do students need more information to leave the beaten paths? The impact of a counseling intervention on high school students’ choice of major

Gendered occupational aspirations among German youth: Role of parental occupations, gender division of labour, and family structure

Effect of providing gender equality information on students’ motivations to choose STEM

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