IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp14666.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender Role Models and Early Career Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Löwe, Monique

    (University of Hagen)

  • Rinne, Ulf

    (IZA)

  • Sonnabend, Hendrik

    (Fern Universität Hagen)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the link between the subject choices of German students in upper secondary school and teacher gender when these choices are taken. Our results corroborate the hypothesis that teacher gender matters in this regard, and they indicate that girls respond more strongly than boys to same-sex role models. While the probability to choose German as an advanced course in upper secondary school increases to a rather similar (i.e., symmetric) extent for both girls and boys when having a same-sex teacher in this subject in grade 10, teacher gender matters only for girls with respect to choosing math on the advanced level.

Suggested Citation

  • Löwe, Monique & Rinne, Ulf & Sonnabend, Hendrik, 2021. "Gender Role Models and Early Career Decisions," IZA Discussion Papers 14666, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14666
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp14666.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scott E. Carrell & Marianne E. Page & James E. West, 2010. "Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1101-1144.
    2. Sansone, Dario, 2017. "Why does teacher gender matter?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 9-18.
    3. Pål Schøne & Kristine von Simson & Marte Strøm, 2020. "Peer gender and educational choices," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1763-1797, October.
    4. Catherine Porter & Danila Serra, 2020. "Gender Differences in the Choice of Major: The Importance of Female Role Models," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 226-254, July.
    5. Bottia, Martha Cecilia & Stearns, Elizabeth & Mickelson, Roslyn Arlin & Moller, Stephanie & Valentino, Lauren, 2015. "Growing the roots of STEM majors: Female math and science high school faculty and the participation of students in STEM," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 14-27.
    6. Eric P. Bettinger & Bridget Terry Long, 2005. "Do Faculty Serve as Role Models? The Impact of Instructor Gender on Female Students," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 152-157, May.
    7. Lee Cronbach, 1951. "Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 16(3), pages 297-334, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Goulas, Sofoklis & Gunawardena, Bhagya N. & Megalokonomou, Rigissa & Zenou, Yves, 2024. "Gender Role Models in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 17271, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Griffith, Amanda L. & Main, Joyce B., 2021. "The role of the teaching assistant: Female role models in the classroom," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Barrios-Fernández, Andrés & Riudavets-Barcons, Marc, 2024. "Teacher value-added and gender gaps in educational outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    4. Agurto, M. & Bazan, M. & Hari, S. & Sarangi, S., 2021. "Women in Engineering: The Role of Role Models," GLO Discussion Paper Series 975, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Takao Kato & Yang Song, 2022. "Advising, gender, and performance: Evidence from a university with exogenous adviser–student gender match," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 121-141, January.
    6. Elaine Kelly & Isabel Stockton, 2024. "A senior doctor like me: Gender match and occupational choice," IFS Working Papers W24/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Shulamit Kahn & Donna Ginther, 2017. "Women and STEM," NBER Working Papers 23525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Stephan Maurer & Guido Schwerdt & Simon Wiederhold, 2023. "Do Role Models Matter in Large Classes? New Evidence on Gender Match Effects in Higher Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 10208, CESifo.
    9. Bhargava, Palaash & Chen, Daniel L. & Sutter, Matthias & Terrier, Camille, 2022. "Homophily and Transmission of Behavioral Traits in Social Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 15840, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Dulce-Salcedo, Olga Victoria & Maldonado, Darío & Sánchez, Fabio, 2022. "Is the proportion of female STEM teachers in secondary education related to women’s enrollment in tertiary education STEM programs?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    11. Aalto, Aino-Maija, 2020. "Do girls choose science when exposed to female science teachers?," Working Paper Series 2020:10, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    12. Gordon B. Dahl & Dan-Olof Rooth & Anders Stenberg, 2024. "Intergenerational and Sibling Spillovers in High School Majors," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 133-173, August.
    13. Thomas Breda & Julien Grenet & Marion Monnet & Clémentine van Effenterre, 2023. "How Effective are Female Role Models in Steering Girls towards STEM? Evidence from French High Schools," PSE Working Papers halshs-01713068, HAL.
    14. Mouganie, Pierre & Canaan, Serena, 2019. "Female science advisors and the STEM gender gap," MPRA Paper 94196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Laura Pagani & Giovanni Pica, 2021. "A Peer Like Me? Early Exposure to High Achievers in Math and Later Educational Outcomes," CSEF Working Papers 619, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    16. Eble, Alex & Hu, Feng, 2020. "Child beliefs, societal beliefs, and teacher-student identity match," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Itzik Fadlon & Frederik Plesner Lyngse & Torben Heien Nielsen, 2022. "Early Career Setbacks and Women’s Career-Family Trade-Off," CEBI working paper series 22-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    18. Arpita Patnaik & Matthew J. Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2020. "College Majors," NBER Working Papers 27645, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Alexandra de Gendre & Jan Feld & Nicolás Salamanca & Ulf Zölitz, 2023. "Same-sex teacher effects," ECON - Working Papers 438, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised May 2024.
    20. Margo Beck & Sara LaLumia, 2022. "Female Role Models and Labor Force Participation: The Case of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 48(4), pages 488-517, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    education; gender; subject choices; STEM;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14666. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.