ABSTRACT

Although it is well documented that women are under-represented in STEM majors, the causes of this under-representation in different contexts are less clear. This article studies the relevance of absolute and relative performance in high school courses on STEM field enrollment when entering college in Chile. We use administrative countrywide data and follow three student cohorts through high school to estimate the effect of performance on courses in high school on major enrollment at the university level. Our estimation confirms the existence of a large gender gap: male students are about 20% points more likely to enroll in a STEM field than similar female students, which we observe all along the academic achievement distribution. These findings suggest it would be beneficial for policymakers to focus on earlier interventions during high school that create incentives and address systemic and cultural issues that might be preventing women from enrolling into STEM fields.

摘要

尽管有充分的证据表明女性在 STEM 专业中的代表性不足，但在不同情况下这种代表性不足的原因尚不清楚。本文研究了进入智利大学时在高中课程中绝对和相对表现与 STEM 领域入学率的相关性。我们使用全国行政数据并跟踪三个高中学生群体，以估计高中课程表现对大学专业入学率的影响。我们的估计证实了巨大的性别差距的存在：男性学生在 STEM 领域注册的可能性比类似的女性学生高约 20%，我们在整个学术成就分布中都观察到了这一点。