IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17330.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Benefits from Single-Sex Schooling? Evidence on Mental Health, Peer Relationships, and Academic Achievements

Author

Listed:
  • Jung, Dain

    (Liaoning University)

  • Kim, Jun Hyung

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

  • Kwak, Do Won

    (Korea University)

Abstract

Single-sex schooling is a controversial policy whose effects are inconsistent across different studies with its mechanisms poorly understood. Leveraging the random allocation of high school students in South Korea, we study the effect of single-sex schooling on mental health while considering its interactions with peer relationships and academic achievement. Our results closely align with gender-specific responses to competitive pressure in the literature. Female students with better academic achievement than their peers experience better mental health and peer relationships. However, relatively underperforming female students, subject to intense competitive pressure at school, do not benefit from being in the company of other female students in a single-sex environment. Impacts on male students do not significantly depend on the competitive pressures they face. Our study calls for caution in implementing educational policies that may affect competitive pressure or gender composition in schools.

Suggested Citation

  • Jung, Dain & Kim, Jun Hyung & Kwak, Do Won, 2024. "Who Benefits from Single-Sex Schooling? Evidence on Mental Health, Peer Relationships, and Academic Achievements," IZA Discussion Papers 17330, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17330
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17330.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Booth, Alison & Nolen, Patrick, 2012. "Choosing to compete: How different are girls and boys?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 542-555.
    2. John Bound & Brad Hershbein & Bridget Terry Long, 2009. "Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 119-146, Fall.
    3. Fanny Landaud & Son Thierry Ly & Éric Maurin, 2020. "Competitive Schools and the Gender Gap in the Choice of Field of Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(1), pages 278-308.
    4. Jason M. Fletcher, 2010. "Adolescent depression and educational attainment: results using sibling fixed effects," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(7), pages 855-871, July.
    5. Hyunjoon Park & Jere Behrman & Jaesung Choi, 2013. "Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College Entrance Exams and College Attendance: Random Assignment in Seoul High Schools," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 447-469, April.
    6. Jie Gong & Yi Lu & Hong Song, 2021. "Gender Peer Effects on Students’ Academic and Noncognitive Outcomes: Evidence and Mechanisms," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(3), pages 686-710.
    7. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2004. "Gender and Competition at a Young Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 377-381, May.
    8. Susan K. Laury & Daniel J. Lee & Kurt E. Schnier, 2019. "Will Girls Be Girls? Risk Taking And Competition In An All‐Girls' School," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(3), pages 1408-1420, July.
    9. Peter Backus & Maria Cubel & Matej Guid & Santiago Sánchez‐Pagés & Enrique López Mañas, 2023. "Gender, competition, and performance: Evidence from chess players," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), pages 349-380, January.
    10. Högberg, Björn & Strandh, Mattias & Hagquist, Curt, 2020. "Gender and secular trends in adolescent mental health over 24 years – The role of school-related stress," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    11. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2010. "Explaining the Gender Gap in Math Test Scores: The Role of Competition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 129-144, Spring.
    12. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    13. Kim, Youngran, 2018. "The effects of school choice on achievement gaps between private and public high schools: Evidence from the Seoul high school choice program," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 25-32.
    14. Mago, Shakun D. & Razzolini, Laura, 2019. "Best-of-five contest: An experiment on gender differences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 164-187.
    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. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2016. "Gender in Jeopardy!: The Role of Opponent Gender in High-Stakes Competition," IZA Discussion Papers 9669, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2021. "The gender gap in competitive chess across countries: Commanding queens in command economies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 425-441.
    3. Eisenkopf, Gerald & Hessami, Zohal & Fischbacher, Urs & Ursprung, Heinrich W., 2015. "Academic performance and single-sex schooling: Evidence from a natural experiment in Switzerland," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 123-143.
    4. Schindler, Dirk & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2012. "Debt shifting and ownership structure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 635-647.
    5. Mario Lackner, 2021. "Gender differences in competitiveness," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 236-236, November.
    6. Doris, Aedín & O’Neill, Donal & Sweetman, Olive, 2013. "Gender, single-sex schooling and maths achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 104-119.
    7. Anelli, Massimo & Peri, Giovanni, 2015. "Peers' Composition Effects in the Short and in the Long Run: College Major, College Performance and Income," IZA Discussion Papers 9119, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Bernd Frick & Clarissa Laura Maria Spiess Bru & Daniel Kaimann, 2023. "Are Women (Really) More Lenient? Gender Differences in Expert Evaluations," Working Papers Dissertations 106, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    9. Attali, Yigal & Neeman, Zvika & Schlosser, Analia, 2011. "Rise to the Challenge or Not Give a Damn: Differential Performance in High vs. Low Stakes Tests," IZA Discussion Papers 5693, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Dilmaghani, Maryam, 2020. "Gender differences in performance under time constraint: Evidence from chess tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Lovász, Anna & Bat-Erdene, Boldmaa & Cukrowska-Torzewska, Ewa & Rigó, Mariann & Szabó-Morvai, Ágnes, 2023. "Competition, subjective feedback, and gender gaps in performance," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    12. Jalava, Nina & Joensen, Juanna Schrøter & Pellas, Elin, 2015. "Grades and rank: Impacts of non-financial incentives on test performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 161-196.
    13. Cassar, Alessandra & Zhang, Y. Jane, 2022. "The competitive woman: Evolutionary insights and cross-cultural evidence into finding the Femina Economica," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 447-471.
    14. Anna Dreber & Emma Essen & Eva Ranehill, 2014. "Gender and competition in adolescence: task matters," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 154-172, March.
    15. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Kjell G. Salvanes & Erik Ø. Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2016. "Willingness to Compete: Family Matters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(8), pages 2149-2162, August.
    16. Jana Cahlíková & Lubomír Cingl & Ian Levely, 2020. "How Stress Affects Performance and Competitiveness Across Gender," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(8), pages 3295-3310, August.
    17. Silvia Saccardo & Aniela Pietrasz & Uri Gneezy, 2018. "On the Size of the Gender Difference in Competitiveness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1541-1554, April.
    18. repec:ces:ifodic:v:15:y:2017:i:2:p:13-17 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2018. "The gender of opponents: Explaining gender differences in performance and risk-taking?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 238-256.
    20. Khachatryan, Karen & Dreber, Anna & von Essen, Emma & Ranehill, Eva, 2015. "Gender and preferences at a young age: Evidence from Armenia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 318-332.
    21. Müller, Julia & Schwieren, Christiane, 2012. "Can personality explain what is underlying women’s unwillingness to compete?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 448-460.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    single-sex schooling; gender and competition; mental health; peer relationship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    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:dp17330. 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.