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Title: The Gender Gap in College Major: Revisiting the Role of Pre-College Factors
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Speer, Jamin D.
The Gender Gap in College Major: Revisiting the Role of Pre-College Factors
Presented: Seattle WA, Annual Meetings of the Society of Labor Economists (SOLE), May 2016
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: Society of Labor Economists (SOLE)
Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Cognitive Ability; College Major/Field of Study/Courses; Gender Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Using a broader array of pre-college test scores (the ASVAB), I show that differences in college preparation can actually account for a large portion of most gender gaps in college major content, including two-thirds of the gap in science, half of the gap in humanities, and almost half of the gap in engineering. By contrast, business and education retain large gender gaps even when controlling for abilities. A smaller portion (at most 22%) of women's higher likelihood of switching out of a science or engineering major is explained by the ASVAB scores, suggesting that most ability sorting into majors occurs at the beginning of college. I show that gender gaps in test scores, particularly in science and mechanical fields, exist by the mid-teenage years and typically grow with age. While there are gender differences in middle and high school course-taking, they do not explain the increasing gender gaps in test scores.
Bibliography Citation
Speer, Jamin D. "The Gender Gap in College Major: Revisiting the Role of Pre-College Factors." Presented: Seattle WA, Annual Meetings of the Society of Labor Economists (SOLE), May 2016.