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Gender differences in the pathways to higher education.

ABSTRACT: It is well known that far fewer men than women enroll in tertiary education in the United States and other Western nations. Developed nations vary in the degree to which men are underrepresented, but the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average lies around 45% male students. We use data from the OECD Education at a Glance statistical reports, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the World Values Survey to explain the degree to which men are underrepresented. Using a multiple regression model, we show that the combination of both the national reading proficiency levels of 15-y-old boys and girls and the social attitudes toward girls attending university can predict the enrollment in tertiary education 5 y later. The model also shows that parity in some countries is a result of boys' poor reading proficiency and negative social attitudes toward girls' education, which suppresses college enrollment in both sexes, but for different reasons. True equity will at the very least require improvement in boys' reading competencies and the liberalization of attitudes regarding women's pursuit of higher education. At this time, there is little reason to expect that the enrollment gap will decrease, given the stagnating reading competencies in most countries.

SUBMITTER: Stoet G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7322061 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Gender differences in the pathways to higher education.

Stoet Gijsbert G Geary David C DC

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200608 25

It is well known that far fewer men than women enroll in tertiary education in the United States and other Western nations. Developed nations vary in the degree to which men are underrepresented, but the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average lies around 45% male students. We use data from the OECD Education at a Glance statistical reports, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the World Values Survey to explain the degree to which men are un ...[more]

PMID: 32513710

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Project description:Gender segregation in higher education is considered one of the main drivers of persistent economic gender inequality. Yet, though there has been considerable research identifying and describing the underlying mechanisms that cause gendered educational choices in higher education, little is known about how gender segregation in higher education could be changed. Accordingly, this article aims to determine the potential of educational interventions during high school to foster gender desegregation in higher education. We focused on two different processes that contribute to gender segregation in majors among higher education graduates: first, the selection into specific majors and, second, the selection out of specific majors. We investigated whether an intensive counselling programme leads to more gender-atypical choices among high-school graduates and examined whether intensive counselling supports several indicators of students' persistence in gender-atypical majors. Based on data from an experimental study of a counselling programme for German high-school students (N = 625), we estimated the programme's effect with linear probability models and intention-to-treat analysis. Our results show that high-school graduates are more likely to choose a gender-atypical major if they have received intensive counselling. This applies more to men than to women. In addition, the programme improved some persistence indicators for students in gender-atypical majors. Although we found a significant programme effect only for perceived person-major fit and student satisfaction, the coefficients of all aspects of students' persistence show a trend indicating that the programme was beneficial for students in gender-atypical majors. As experimental studies can also be affected by various types of bias, we performed several robustness checks. All analyses indicated stable results. In conclusion, we suggest that intensive counselling programmes have the potential to reduce gender segregation in higher education. More students were motivated to choose a gender-atypical major, and different aspects of student persistence were supported by the programme for students in gender-atypical majors.

Dataset Information

Gender differences in the pathways to higher education.

Publications

Gender differences in the pathways to higher education.

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