Applied Economics Lunch Seminar

Du 19/01/2016 de 12:30 à 13:30

HILLION Mélina (Paris School of Economics)

The happy survivors: Teaching accreditation exams reveal grading biases systematically favor women in male-dominated disciplines

Discrimination is seen as one of the possible causes behind the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, existing experiments and studies find contrasting results. We hypothesize that these discrepancies are explained by strong variations in evaluation biases according to both the extent of underrepresentation of women in each STEM and non STEM subject and the level at which the evaluation takes place. This is tested using as natural experiments French competitive teaching exams in 11 different fields and at 3 different levels of qualification. Comparisons of oral non gender-blind tests with written gender-blind tests reveal a bias in favor of women that is strongly increasing with the extent of its male-domination. The bias turns from pro-male in literature and foreign languages to strongly pro-female in math, physics or philosophy. The phenomenon is strongest at the highest level, suggesting that discrimination does not impair hiring chances of female students in STEM fields at the very end of their curriculum, although it may do so at earlier stages (e.g. middle school, high school and college).