The Effects of High School Peers’ Gender on College Major, College Performance and Income

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Effects of High School Peers' Gender on College Major, College Performance and Income Terms of use: Documents in AbstractUsing an originally constructed dataset that follows 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to the labor market, we analyze whether the gender composition of peers in high school affected their choice of college major, their academic performance and their labor market income. We exploit the within-school, cohort-by-cohort variation in the gender composition of high school classmates (peers), after controlling for school and teachers fixed effects. We find that male students graduating from classes with a large majority of male peers were more likely to choose "prevalently male" (PM) college majors (Economics, Business and Engineering). However, this impact was partially undone during college through attrition, worse academic performance and change in major. And in the long run it did not produce any difference in income or labor market outcomes. We do not find significant effects of the high school class gender composition on women. Our results are consistent with the fact that individuals are affected by the choice/pressure of the network of friends and with the observation that network size responds to class gender composition more for men than for women. JEL-Codes: I210, J160, J240, J310, Z130.

The Long-Run Effects of Disruptive Peers

“…Bifulco, Fletcher and Ross (2011) report that a higher percentage of high school classmates with college-educated mothers decreases the likelihood of dropping out and increases college attendance, though Bifulco et al (2014) show that this effect diminishes over time and that there is no evidence of an effect on labor market outcomes. Anelli and Peri (2015) analyze the long-term effects of high school gender composition and find that a higher proportion of female peers reduces the likelihood males choose a "prevalently male" major, but has no effect on graduation and labor market outcomes. Finally, Black, Devereux and Salvanes (2013) show that a higher proportion of females in ninth grade reduces mean educational attainment and the likelihood of selecting the academic (as opposed to vocational) track, but helps women by leading to lower teenage birth rates and higher earnings.…”

STEM Graduates and Secondary School Curriculum: Does Early Exposure to Science Matter?

“…Many scholars [Cameron andHeckma, 2001, Moretti, 2012], indeed, attribute the lack of STEM graduates to the low quality of the US school system. Some studies look at the effects of school inputs (usually at the university level), like peers [De Giorgi et al, 2010, Anelli andPeri, 2015], teachers [Scott E. Carrell and West, 2010], teaching structure [Machin and McNally, 2008] and university coursework [Fricke et al, 2015]. Still, excluding some recent studies that evaluate the effects of secondary school curricula using quasiexperimental evidence [Joensen and Nielsen, 2009, Cortes et al, 2015, Goodman, 2012, there is little quantitative work on the effects of secondary school courses [Altonji et al, 2012].…”

Identity Economics: Social Influence and Skill Development

“…() find evidence that short‐run effects from the cohort composition of college educated mothers in high school fade out with time. Anelli and Peri () find few significant effects from high school gender cohort composition. Black et al .…”