No. 8/2013: Gender Peer Effects on Further Education


Abstract

This paper studies effects of the proportion of girls in compulsory education on further education. I use detailed Norwegian register data to estimate the influence of the proportion of girls in the last grade of compulsory education on high school education and university attainment. A higher proportion of girls is found to increase the probability of graduating from high school. The result is robust to several model specifications. The analysis also indicates a positive effect on enrollment in higher education. Heterogeneity and non-linearity analyses indicate that gender peer effects are most important for students most likely to be on the margin of graduating from high school and enrolling in higher education, and when the share of female students is low.
JEL Classification: I2, I21
Keywords: Gender peer effects; high school graduation; higher education