CSWEP-SSRC Women in Economics and Mathematics Research Consortium

Abstract

Students’ choice of major is increasingly important in determining job opportunities and wages. Recent research suggests that the gender gap in majors begins before students even set foot on campus. High school counselors could play a crucial role in shaping students’ majoring interests by both expanding the information sets available to them and dismantling stereotypes that could keep women away from certain majors. In this project, the team will evaluate the impact of an intervention aimed at informing high school counselors about the field of economics, with the goal of persuading counselors to convey this information to students. The study involves over 200 high schools and will assess the impact of the counselor intervention on students’ decision to major in economics, and will examine possible spillover effects into the mathematics major, another gender imbalanced field of study. In the longer run, the team will evaluate the impact of the counselor information intervention on students’ labor market outcomes.

Principal Investigator

Danila Serra

Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, Texas A&M University

Co-Principal Investigators

Jonathan Meer

Professor, Dept. of Economics, Texas A&M University

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