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When Sarah Meets Lawrence: The Effects of Coeducation on Women's College Major Choices

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  • Calkins, Avery
  • Binder, Ariel J.
  • Shaat, Dana
  • Timpe, Brenden

Abstract

We leverage variation in the adoption of coeducation by U.S. women’s colleges to study how exposure to a mixed-gender collegiate environment affects women’s human capital investments. Our event-study analyses of newly collected historical data find a 3.0-3.5 percentage-point (30-33%) decline in the share of women majoring in STEM. While coeducation caused a large influx of male peers and modest increase in male faculty, we find no evidence that it altered the composition of the female student body or other gender-neutral inputs. Extrapolation of our main estimate suggests that coeducational environments explain 36% of the current gender gap in STEM.

Suggested Citation

  • Calkins, Avery & Binder, Ariel J. & Shaat, Dana & Timpe, Brenden, 2022. "When Sarah Meets Lawrence: The Effects of Coeducation on Women's College Major Choices," SocArXiv 5374q_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:5374q_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/5374q_v1
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