Gender differences in educational attainment
Subtitle: evidence on the role of the tracking age from a Finnish quasi-experiment
By: by Tuomas Pekkarinen.
Series: Discussion paper ;; no. 1897; Discussion paper (Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit : Online) ;; no. 1897
Publisher: IZA
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Bonn, Germany
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Sex differences in education -- Finland.; Track system (Education) -- Finland.
Description: "This paper studies the relationship between the timing of tracking of pupils into vocational and academic secondary education and gender differences in educational attainment and income. We argue that in a system that streams students into vocational and academic tracks relatively late (age 15-16), girls are more likely to choose the academic track than boys because of gender differences in the timing of puberty. We exploit the Finnish comprehensive school reform of the 1970's to analyze this hypothesis. This reform postponed the tracking of students from the age of 10-11 to 15-16 and was adopted gradually by municipalities so that we can observe members of the same cohorts in both systems. We find that the postponement of the tracking age increased gender differences in the probability of choosing the academic secondary education and in the probability of continuing into academic tertiary education. The reform had particularily negative effects on boys from non-academic family backgrounds. Finally, the reform decreased the gender wage gap in adult income by four percentage points"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.
Notes: Also available in print.
Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 12/19/2005.
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.