Stereotypical Selection

Stereotypical Selection

Martina Zanella (Trinity College Dublin) 

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ABSTRACT:

Women continue to be underrepresented and face significant challenges in establishing careers within traditionally male-dominated fields. Does minority status in and of itself create a barrier to women’s success? Conventional wisdom posits that it does, as under-representation is often associated with negative stereotypes about the group (e.g. women in math), which are shown to be detrimental to performance. However, the decision to enter stereotypically male fields is endogenous and may, in part, be motivated by a desire to challenge these stereotypes. This paper aims to assess how minority status affects performance when selection is endogenous. I study the performance of 14,000 students at an elite university across 16 departments, in a real-world setting that combines a choice with well-defined stereotypes - university major - with exogenous variation in peer identity - quasi-random allocation of students across class groups within the same course. I find that being in the minority negatively affects only the students who choose majors in line with societal expectations (e.g. men in math). These are the students who belong to the majority group, and those who are found to hold beliefs that more strongly align with these expectations. In line with social identity considerations being incorporated into educational choices, the evidence suggests that ex-ante different "sensitivity" to stereotypes and the composition of the environment induces students to select different majors and subsequently react to the composition of the environment in a self-fulfilling way.  

BIO:

Martina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Trinity College Dublin. She is affiliated with the Trinity Impact Evaluation Unit (TIME) and the Trinity Research in Social Sciences (TRISS). Martina’s research explores causes and consequences of inequality in education, labour markets, and political bodies, drawing insights from Psychology and Sociology to provide evidence-based suggestions for policy. Before joining TCD, Martina obtained a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in March 2022, and an undergraduate and master degree at Bocconi University.