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Math and Gender: What if Girls Do Math?

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  • Juanna Joensen

    (Stockholm School of Economics)

Abstract

There is a large gender gap in advanced math coursework in high school that many believe exists because girls are discouraged from taking math courses. In this paper, we exploit an institutional change that reduced the costs of acquiring advanced high school math, in particular for girls at the top of the math ability distribution, to determine if access is, in fact, the mechanism. By estimation of marginal treatment effects of acquiring advanced math qualifications, we document substantial beneficial wage effects from encouraging even more females to opt for these qualifications. Our analysis suggests that the beneficial effect comes from accelerating graduation and attracting females to traditionally male-dominated career tracks and to CEO positions. Our results may be reconciled with experimental and empirical evidence suggesting there is a pool of unexploited math talent among high ability girls that may be retrieved by changing the institutional set-up of math teaching.

Suggested Citation

  • Juanna Joensen, 2012. "Math and Gender: What if Girls Do Math?," 2012 Meeting Papers 992, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed012:992
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    References listed on IDEAS

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