Decomposing international gender test score differences

Arbeitspapier

In this paper, we decompose worldwide PISA mathematics and reading scores. While mathematics scores are still tilted towards boys, girls have a larger advantage in reading over boys. Girls' disadvantage in mathematics is increasing over the distribution of talents. Our decomposition shows that part of this increase can be explained by an increasing trend in productive endowments and learning productivity, although the largest part remains unexplained. Countries' general level of gender (in)equality also contributes to girls' disadvantage. For reading, at the upper end of the talent distribution, girls' advantage can be fully explained by differences in learning productivity, but this is not so at lower levels.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 1804

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Higher Education; Research Institutions ; Education and Inequality ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• Subject: Gender gap ; Test scores ; PISA ; Mathematics ; Reading

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Munir, Farzana ; Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Department of Economics
• (where): Linz
• (when): 2018

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/183263
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET