Does Exposure to More Women in Male-Dominated Fields Render Female Students More Career-Oriented?

The underrepresentation of women in traditionally male-dominated fields of study can generate a lack of role models for female students, influencing their career choices. We investigate whether having higher shares of female professors and classmates throughout undergraduate studies in economics affects female students’ labor market outcomes up to five years after graduation. To deal with self-selection into professors and peers, we exploit the assignment rule of students to course sections at the prestigious University of Sao Paulo and focus on mandatory courses. Our findings suggest that having more female peers and professors can positively impact female students’ labor outcomes by increasing their participation rates in the workforce and accumulated experience, particularly in course sections in which female students are underrepresented. We also investigate potential channels driving our results. We show that a higher share of female classmates can help female students stay attached to the job market early on by securing internships or formal work during university. Moreover, female students are more likely to choose higher paying and male-dominated occupations if they have access to more female peers. Overall, our study highlights the importance of gender diversity in male-dominated academic settings and its potential positive impact on female students’ career outcomes. This paper was accepted by Dorothea Kübler, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [Grants 2015/21640-3, 2017/23593-8, 2019/07424-7, 2019/25033-5, 2021/08880-6], Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES - Finance Code 001). Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.01422 .