Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/145049 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 6014
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Using an originally constructed dataset that follows 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to the labor market, 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 exploit the within-school, cohort-by-cohort variation in the gender composition of high school classmates (peers), after controlling for school and teachers fixed effects. We find that male students graduating from classes with a large majority of male peers were more likely to choose “prevalently male” (PM) college majors (Economics, Business and Engineering). However, this impact was partially undone during college through attrition, worse academic performance and change in major. And in the long run it did not produce any difference in income or labor market outcomes. We do not find significant effects of the high school class gender composition on women. Our results are consistent with the fact that individuals are affected by the choice/pressure of the network of friends and with the observation that network size responds to class gender composition more for men than for women.
Subjects: 
peer effects
high school
gender
networks
choice of college major
academic performance
wages
JEL: 
I21
J16
J24
J31
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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