Economics is lagging way behind when it comes to the proportion of women among professors. However, this gender gap in economics education is slowly becoming history, according to Professor Ivo Arnolds, Vice Dean of Education at Erasmus School of Economics. Within the ESE, female students don’t drop out more often in the first year and have a better graduation rate. Moreover, female students are outperforming the male students in econometrics. That women are increasingly interested in econometrics is promising, because many scientists
in the economics discipline have an econometric background. This inspires hope of being able to tackle the academic staff ’s lack of diversity.
In this empirical analysis, Professor Ivo Arnolds, investigates whether the assumption - that boys are better at economics than girls - still holds, by looking at the drop-out rate and bachelor's graduation rate of students in the Dutch-language bachelor’s degree programmes in Economics & Business and in Econometrics & Operations Research, over the years 2009-2015.
Background characteristics
According to the analysis, background characteristics, such as prior education, play an important role. This includes their grading average, track choices, age, but also ethnicity. Whereas the choice for the Science & Engineering (S&E) track - which attracts analytically adepts students and offers them a mathematical education well-suited to economics studies - is more common for men, female students tend to have significantly higher VWO grades. The age on which men and women start with their studies is comparable. However, the age at which students with a non-Western migrant background enroll are usually higher. They also tend to have lower VWO-averages and have less often chosen to do the S&E track.
Study success & bachelor graduation rate
The above variables - gender, ethnicity and other background characteristics - are used in a regression to investigate whether they have a significant effect upon surviving the first year and receiving a positive BSA. It appears that gender and ethnicity do not, whereas the background characteristics do have a significant effect. When looking at bachelor graduation rates, the grade average of the first bachelor year is used as a variable instead of the background characteristics, because the former measures the most recent academic achievement and, as such, makes the latter variables redundant. When looking at the result, the effect of ethnicity remains insignificant. However, gender does have a significantly effect upon the results when looking at the four-year graduation rate. The grade average has a significant effect for both 3- and 4-year graduation rates.