Full Citation

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

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2022

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI: 10.7249/wra1060-1

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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.

Url: https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA1060-1-v2.html

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Authors: Calkins, Avery; Binder, Ariel J.; Shaat, Dana; Timpe, Brenden

Series Title: Working Papers

Publication Number: WR-A1060-1-v2

Institution: Rand Corporation

Pages: 81

Publisher Location: Santa Monica, CA

Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS CPS

Topics: Education, Gender

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