The problem starts in high school, where courses are grouped in restrictive bundles, write Juanna Schrøter Joensen and Helena Skyt Nielse

Nielsen, Skyt

Schrøter Joensen, Juanna

LSE Research Online

10/4/2016Why do women avoid maths, even if it boosts their careers?blogs.lse.ac.uk /businessreview/2016/10/04/why-do-women-avoid-maths-even-if-it-boosts-their-careers/(No name) by Pixapopz, under a CC0 licenceAlthough the college gender gap has reversed, females are still under-represented in high-powered and high-paidcareers as CEOs, Ph.D.s, and more generally in finance, business, science, technology, engineering, and maths(STEM) fields.In a recent paper ( Joensen and Nielsen, 2016), we assess three potential explanations for this inequality. First, arethe labour market rewards for advanced maths skills lower for females than for males? Second, are females lesstalented than males in terms of  maths abilities? Third, does the way we market and teach maths in schools drivetalented females away? The answers to the questions are: no, no, and yes! In particular, we show that restrictivecourse bundling in high school constitute a barrier for female maths talents.Why have these questions not already been answered? Gender differences in  maths qualifications may explain asubstantial part of the gender gap in income and in career outcomes, because the positive causal effect of advancedmaths on earnings is sizeable (Altonji, 1995; Rose and Betts 2004; Joensen and Nielsen, 2009). Several studies(Paglin and Rufolo, 1990; Rose and Betts 2004; Goldin, Katz and Kuziemko, 2006; Altonji, Blom and Meghir, 2012)touch upon the link between lack of female maths qualifications and the gender wage gap. Goldin et al. (2006) alsoargue that better female college preparedness, including completion of advanced maths and science courses in highschool, is an important factor in the reversal from male-dominated colleges to female-dominated colleges in the US.But causality is still not established due to the lack of variation in the choice of maths that is random with respect tounobservable factors affecting both the choice of maths, subsequent career choices, and income. Suchunobservable factors include maths ability and motivation.How do we answer these questions? We analyse Danish administrative data for three cohorts of high schoolstudents whose education and labour market careers have been followed for 21 years after they started high schoolin 1984-86. The study is based on a pilot scheme that unexpectedly and randomly allowed for a more flexiblecombination of advanced maths with other courses. Advanced maths teaches the students more advanced algebraand geometry compared to intermediate high school maths. Advanced maths is a prerequisite to enter most STEM1/4fields in college. In the traditional high school, advanced maths could only be combined with advanced physics, butthe pilot scheme also offered the option to combine advanced maths with chemistry. This was a minor change inchoice sets, since it simply swapped advanced for intermediate chemistry and intermediate for advanced physicscompared to the traditional advanced maths course option. But this additional option had a substantial impact on thechoices of students at schools that adopted the pilot scheme. Only one out of ten girls chose advanced maths beforethe pilot scheme, but this fraction doubled after it was introduced. The fraction also increased for boys: from four outof ten to half choosing maths.Maths also boosts income for femalesGirls at the top and boys at the middle of the maths-ability distribution took more maths because of the costreduction. These advanced maths qualifications provided the basis for more successful careers: 30 per cent higherearnings on average. The average earnings gains were at least as high for females as for males.Figure 1. Causal effect of  maths on earnings, marginal studentsNote: The figure is equivalent to Figure 3 in Joensen and Nielsen (2016) which we refer to fora detailed description. The horizontal axis displays the probability to choose advanced maths in high school. This is the unobserved cost relative to unobserved gain of advanced maths that we label  maths ability. The vertical axis displays the causal effect of advanced maths on earnings 12-21 years after high school entry with solid lines (incl. 95 per centconfidence intervals with fine dashed lines). The dark red lines display the female figures,while the light blue lines display the male figures. The shaded bars highlight those whowould be at the margin of choosing advanced  maths if costs were reduced even further.For girls and boys with identical abilities, the earnings gains from studying maths are equal. While we refer Joensenand Nielsen (2016) for detailed explanations, this can be seen by the overlapping red and blue lines in Figure 1,which illustrates the earnings gains caused by advanced maths across the ability distribution. The fact that earnings2/4gains are equal across gender for individuals with an identical ability indicates that there is no gender discriminationin the labour market as to rewarding individuals with similar maths ability equally for their advanced mathsqualifications. This also indicates that the underlying maths ability distribution is equal, at least around the top decileof the distribution.What if costs were to be reduced even more? The students who would be at the margin of choosing maths if costswere reduced further are highlighted by the shaded areas in Figure 1. The figure reveals that the earnings benefitsto the marginal girls are substantial when only 20 per cent of them take maths, whereas the benefits to the marginalboys are not significantly different from zero when half of them already take maths. This means that there is aconsiderable fraction of girls who would gain from choosing maths when only the girls of highest ability choosemaths, while boys of more mediocre ability also choose maths. There is indeed ample unexploited maths talentamong girls to be retrieved. Our results suggest that this maths talent can be retrieved by allowing for even moreflexible bundling of courses in high school curricula. For example, allowing advanced maths to be bundled with otheradvanced science courses that appeal more to girls.How and why does maths boost income?We also analyse how advanced maths qualifications affect the position in the earnings distribution. We find thatmaths moves females to the top of the earnings distribution, while it prevents males from falling to the bottom of theearnings distribution. Overall the impacts across the maths ability distribution and the earnings distribution suggestthat advanced maths pushes high ability students to the top of the earnings distribution, while it pulls more mediocremaths-ability students from the bottom and does not have a significant impact on low maths-ability students.Why is there such a large income boost by studying advanced maths for high ability females? We find that they endup performing better in the education system, because it makes more of them complete Master’s and PhD degreesinstead of 2- and 4- year college degrees. However, the fact that advanced maths makes females drift away fromtraditional female education in the humanities towards high-paid education in health sciences and technical sciencesalso indicates that preferences, self-confidence, or self-perception may be affected by succeeding with advancedmaths in high school. We even find that they become more likely to work in more competitive career tracks in theprivate sector and to become CEOs.The high earnings gains thus encompass that high-ability females switch towards more advanced and more maths-intensive college fields, pursue more competitive career tracks, and subsequently climb higher up in the earningsdistribution and to some extent also the corporate hierarchical ladder.How to identify, attract, and foster talent?We believe that our conclusions generalise to populations where substantially more males than females choose themost maths-intensive college majors and careers. This includes most Western European countries and the US.Many studies hint at cultural differences across countries, across education systems and across individual schoolsas important explanations for the gender gap in maths qualifications (Andreescu et al. 2008; Guiso et al., 2008;Bedard and Cho, 2010; Ellison and Swanson, 2010; Fryer and Levitt, 2010; Pope and Sydnor, 2010). Therefore, itseems obvious that there is scope for improving female maths qualifications and subsequent career outcomes byunderstanding why and how educational environments affect the costs of achieving maths qualifications: How ismaths taught? How is maths marketed? And – in our case – how is maths bundled with other courses?Our results suggest that neither lack of abilities nor labour market rewards discourage girls from taking advancedmaths courses. Instead it seems that access is deterred by too restrictive bundling of courses. This suggests thereis a lost pool of maths talent among high-ability girls that may be accessed by changing the costs embedded in theeducational environment and the institutional set-up of maths teaching. This may even be beneficial for the economyas a whole as identifying, attracting, and fostering the most talented people to succeed in STEM careers couldincrease innovation, productivity, and economic growth.3/4Why do talented females shy away from advanced maths – despite the economic benefits being so high? Ourrecent paper (Joensen and Nielsen, 2016) provides hard evidence on one aspect of cost in the educationalenvironment, which may be a barrier to attract the most talented people to achieve their maximum potential. It alsohighlights that much more research is needed on how to identify, attract, and foster this lost pool of talent.♣♣♣Notes:This blog post is based on the authors’ paper Mathematics and Gender: Heterogeneity in Causes andConsequences, The Economic Journal, June 2016.The post gives the views of its authors, not the position of LSE Business Review, the London School ofEconomics or the University of Minnesota.Before commenting, please read our Comment PolicyJuanna Schrøter Joensen is a Senior Research Associate at the Department of Economics atthe University of Chicago, a network member of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity(HCEO) Global Working Group, and a research fellow in the Institute for the Study of Labor(IZA). Her research focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of individual humancapital investments. It highlights important aspects of heterogeneity in human capital investmentsand its interaction with institutions and public policies; such as curricula, grading, and study aidschemes. Her PhD dissertation was prized the best in Social Sciences in 2007 and the best inEconomics in the two-year period 2006-2007 at Aarhus University. She also received theEuropean Association of Labour Economists (EALE) Young Labour Economist Prize 2009. Email:jjoensen@uchicago.eduHelena Skyt Nielsen is a professor of Economics, Aarhus University, and she earned her PhD inEconomics from Aarhus University in 1999. Her research primarily concerns education and familyeconomics, and her current projects study family dynamics and school resources among otherthings. She has published more than forty academic articles in leading international journals. Sheis a member of the Danish Council for Independent Research | Social Sciences. She is a researchfellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, and an affiliate withTrygFondens Centre for Child Research. She serves as an editor-in-chief of Labour Economics.Email: hnielsen@econ.au.dk Copyright © 2015 London School of Economics4/4

Why do women avoid maths, even if it boosts their careers?

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