Working Paper: NBER ID: w21407
Authors: Jaegeum Lim; Jonathan Meer
Abstract: Gender disparities in academic performance may be driven in part by the interaction of teacher and student gender, but systematic sorting of students into classrooms makes it difficult to identify causal effects. We use the random assignment of students to Korean middle school classrooms and show that the female students perform substantially better on standardized tests when assigned to female teachers; there is little effect on male students.
Keywords: Teacher-Student Gender Matches; Academic Performance; Random Assignment; South Korea
JEL Codes: I21; I24; J16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| teacher behavior (C92) | better performance of female students (D29) |
| teacher gender (J16) | performance variation in subjects (D29) |
| female students (I24) | better performance (D29) |
| female teachers (A21) | better performance of female students (D29) |
| female teachers (A21) | performance of male students (D29) |
| teacher gender (J16) | performance of male students (D29) |