Female science advisors and the STEM gender gap

Canaan, Serena and Mouganie, Pierre (2019): Female science advisors and the STEM gender gap.

Abstract

In an effort to reduce the gender gap in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), policymakers often propose providing women with close mentoring by female scientists. This is based on the idea that female scientists might act as role models and counteract negative gender stereotypes that are pervasive in science fields. However, as of yet, there is still no clear evidence on the role of mentor or advisor gender in reducing the STEM gender gap. We use rich administrative data from a private 4-year college to provide some of the first causal evidence on the impact of advisor gender on women's STEM degree attainment. We exploit a unique setting where students are randomly assigned to academic advisors--who are also faculty members--in their freshman year of college. A college advisor's main role is to provide students with one-on-one personalized mentoring regarding course and major selection. Students declare a major at the end of their freshman year, after having had the opportunity to repeatedly interact with their advisors. We find that being matched to a female rather than a male science advisor substantially narrows the gender gaps in STEM enrollment and graduation, with the strongest effects occurring among students who are highly skilled in math. In contrast, the gender of an advisor from a non-science department has no impact on students' major choice. Our results suggest that providing close mentoring or advising by female scientists can play an important role in promoting women's participation and persistence in STEM fields.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: STEM, Gender Gap, Advising
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I20 - General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I24 - Education and Inequality; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I26 - Returns to Education

References

AK2004 Avery, Christopher. 2010. The effects of college counseling on high-achieving, low-income students. NBER Working Paper No. 16359.

Barr, Andrew, and Benjamin Castleman. 2018. An engine of economic opportunity: Intensive advising, college success, and social mobility. Texas A\&M Working Paper .

Bettinger, Eric P., and Bridget Terry Long. 2005. Do faculty serve as role models? The impact of instructor gender on female students. American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings 95 (2): 152-157.

Bettinger, Eric P., and Rachel B. Baker. 2014. The effects of student coaching: An evaluation of a randomized experiment in student advising. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 36 (1): 3-19.

Blau, Francine D., Janet M. Currie, Rachel T.A. Croson, and Donna K. Ginther. 2010. Can mentoring help female assistant professors? Interim results from a randomized trial. American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings 100 (2): 348-352.

Blickenstaff, Clark J., 2005. Women and Science Careers: Leaky Pipeline or Gender Filter? Gender and education 17 (4), 369-386.

Breda, Thomas, Julien Grenet, Marion Monnet, and Clementine Van Effenterre. 2018. Can female role models reduce the gender gap in science? Evidence from classroom interventions in French high schools. Paris School of Economics Working Paper .

Canaan, Serena, and Pierre Mouganie. 2018. Returns to education quality for low-skilled students: Evidence from a discontinuity. Journal of Labor Economics 36 (2): 395-436.

Carrell, Scott E., Marianne E. Page, and James E. West. 2010. Sex and science: How professor gender perpetuates the gender gap. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 125 (3): 1101-1144.

Carrell, Scott E., and Bruce I. Sacerdote. 2017. Why do college-going interventions work? American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 9 (3): 124-151.

Castleman, Benjamin, and Joshua Goodman. 2018. Intensive college counseling and the enrollment and persistence of low-income students. Education Finance and Policy 13 (1): 19-41.

College Board. 2012. SAT Percentile Ranks. Retrieved from: \url http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-2012.pdf

Dee, Thomas S. 2007. Teachers and the gender gaps in student achievement. Journal of Human Resources 42 (3): 528-554.

Eble, Alex, and Feng Hu. 2017. Stereotypes, role models, and the formation of beliefs. Unpublished Manuscript .

Gaule, Patrick, and Mario Piacentini. 2018. An advisor like me? Advisor gender and post-graduate careers in science. Research Policy 47 (4): 805-813.

Gong, Jie, Yi Lu, and Hong Song. 2018. The effect of teacher gender on students' academic and noncognitive outcomes. Journal of Labor Economics 36 (3): 743-778.

Griffith, Amanda L. 2010. Persistence of women and minorities in STEM field majors: Is it the school that matters?. Economics of Education Review 29 (6): 911-922.

Hastings, Justine S., Christopher A. Neilson, and Seth D. Zimmerman. 2013. Are some degrees worth more than others? Evidence from college admission cutoffs in Chile. NBER Working Paper No. 19241.

Hilmer, Christiana, and Michael Hilmer. 2007. Women helping women, men helping women? Same-gender mentoring, initial job placements, and early career publishing success for economics PhDs. American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings 97 (2): 422-426.

Kato, Takao, and Yang Song. 2018. An advisor like me: Does gender matter? IZA Discussion Paper No. 11575.

Kirkebo en, Lars J., Edwin Leuven, and Magne Mogstad. 2016. Field of study, earnings, and self-selection. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 131 (3): 1057-1111.

Lavecchia, Adam M., Heidi Liu, and Philip Oreopoulos. 2016. Behavioral economics of education: Progress and possibilities. In Handbook of the Economics of Education , vol. 5: 1-74. Elsevier.

Leslie, Sarah-Jane, Andrei Cimpian, Meredith Meyer, and Edward Freeland. 2015. Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science 347 (6219): 262-265.

Lim, Jaegeum, and Jonathan Meer. 2017. The impact of teacher-student gender matches: Random assignment evidence from South Korea. Journal of Human Resources 52 (4): 979-997.

Lim, Jaegeum, and Jonathan Meer. 2019. Persistent effects of teacher-student gender matches. Journal of Human Resources .

Mansour, Hani, Daniel I. Rees, Bryson M. Rintala, and Nathan N. Wozny. 2018. The effects of professor gender on the post-graduation outcomes of female students. IZA DP no. 11820 .

NACADA National Survey of Academic Advising. 2011. Retrieved from \url https://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Clearinghouse/View-Articles/2011-NACADA-National-Survey.aspx

Neumark, David, and Rosella Gardecki. 1998. Women helping women? Role model and mentoring effects on female Ph.D. students in economics. Journal of Human Resources 33 (1): 220-247.

Oreopoulos, Philip, Robert S. Brown, and Adam M. Lavecchia. 2017. Pathways to education: An integrated approach to helping at-risk high school students. Journal of Political Economy 125 (4): 947-984.

Pezzoni, Michele, Jacques Mairesse, Paula Stephan, and Julia Lane. 2016. Gender and the publication output of graduate students: A case study. PloS One 11 (1): e0145-146.

Porter, Catherine, and Danila Serra. 2018. Gender differences in the choice of major: The importance of female role models. Southern Methodist University Working Paper .

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. 2015. Reaching the Full Potential of STEM for Women and the U.S. Economy. Washington, DC .

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2018. The Condition of Education 2018 (NCES 2018-144).

Saliba, Edwin, Walid Sayegh, and Talal F. Salman. 2017. Assessing Labor Income Inequality in Lebanon's Private Sector: Findings, Comparative Analysis of Determinants, and Recommendations. UNDP Fiscal Policy Advisory and Reform Project at the Lebanese Ministry of Finance Report

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. 2011. Women and Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).