Drop out, switch majors, or persist? The contrasting gender gaps

Men and women respond differently to early-college struggles. Men are more likely than women to drop out of college, while women are more likely to switch majors. These effects offset so that there is no gender gap in the probability of graduating in one’s initial major choice. For students who begin in STEM majors, however, women are far less likely to graduate in the field, driven by the fact that they are twice as likely to switch majors. We find no evidence that women are more sensitive to poor academic performance in the switching or dropout decisions. •Men are more likely to drop out of college; women are more likely to switch majors.•Overall, effects offset so there is no gap in major persistence.•In STEM, gender gap in switching swamps drop-out gap.•Conditional on starting in STEM, women are much less likely to persist in STEM.•We find no evidence that women are more responsive to low early-college grades.