Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/113999 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9119
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In this paper we use a newly constructed dataset following 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to labor market and we analyze whether the gender composition of peers in high school affected their choice of college major, their academic performance and their labor market income. We leverage the fact that the composition of high school classmates (peers), within school-cohort and teacher-group, was not chosen by the students and it was as good as random. We find that male students graduating from classes with at least 80% of male peers were more likely to choose "prevalently male" (PM) college majors (Economics, Business and Engineering). However, this higher propensity to enroll in PM majors faded away during college (through transfers and attrition) so that men from classes with at least 80% of male peers in high school did not have higher probability of graduating in PM majors. They had instead worse college performance and did not exhibit any difference in income or labor market outcomes after college. We do not find significant effects on women.
Subjects: 
peer effects
high school
gender
choice of college major
academic performance
wages
JEL: 
I21
J16
J24
J31
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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