Gender,culture and STEM: Counter-intuitive patterns in Arab society |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Economics, Bar Ilan University, Israel;2. Department of Economics, Ben Gurion University, Israel and Ruppin Academic Center, Israel;1. Migration Policy Centre (RSCAS), European University Institute, Villa Malafrasca, Via Boccaccio 151, I-50133 Florence, Italy;2. Kiel University, and Head of Research Center ‘‘Poverty Reduction, Equity and Development’’, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, D-24105 Kiel, Germany;1. Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, PO Box 90545, Durham, NC 27708, United States;2. College of Economics and Finance, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, South Korea |
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| Abstract: | Using longitudinal administrative data to track student achievement and choice, we show how social conditioning shapes gender differences in the choice of STEM study fields, after controlling for prior achievement and socio-economic background. The male majority in advanced matriculation electives in mathematics, physics, and computer science, observed among students in Hebrew-language schools in Israel as in other Western societies, is reversed among Arab students, a society with markedly less gender equality. This greater representation of Arab female students in STEM study fields is only partially explained by the large gender gap favoring girls in eighth-grade mathematics and science achievement in Arabic-language schools. Much of the remaining difference in gender gaps can be traced to differences in the relationship between prior circumstance and choice between the two groups. This belies the notion of a congenital female aversion to traditionally male STEM subjects, and accords with previous findings that gender differences in preferences are greater in societies with greater gender equality. Following a cohort of eight-grade students to matriculation eliminates the selection bias that attenuates estimates of gender gaps in studies that analyze choices of college-bound students. |
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