Do single-sex schools make girls less interested in predominantly male majors?

Abstract

This study estimates the impact of single-sex schooling on the gender gap in students choice of college major. Potential endogeneity concerns are mitigated by homogeneous application behavior under the Boston mechanism-type assignment into high schools and college-major-specific admissions policies in South Korea. Single-sex schooling is found to widen the gender gap in the choice of predominantly male majors by attracting girls to genderbalanced majors and boys to predominantly male majors. Recruiting more male mathematics and science teachers, while maintaining the share of female teachers at a certain level, could encourage girls in single-sex schools to pursue predominantly male majors.