Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/325059 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 18001
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper considers the impacts of grades and information on gender gaps in college major and college dropout rates at a large public flagship university. Observational and experimental results suggest women are more responsive to introductory economics grades when deciding whether to major in economics while men are more responsive to introductory economics grades when deciding whether to drop out of college. Providing better information about grade distributions appears to only somewhat mitigate these impacts. These results suggest better information may blunt the impact of relative grade sensitivities on college gender gaps but may not fully outweigh the saliency of grades. Finally, we consider the extent to which aligning economics grading standards with those of competing disciplines would reduce the gender gap in economics graduates but find relatively limited impacts.
Subjects: 
college dropout
college major
gender
higher education
JEL: 
I23
I24
J16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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