ECONOMICS SEMINAR SERIES (ESS) - 2024/2025

Speaker: Beatrix Eugster  (St. Gallen)

Title: Missing stars? Quantifying the gender gap in the assessment of gifted students
 

Abstract
Female students are less likely to be identified as intellectually gifted than male students when the identification process follows a two-stage procedure, i.e., where nomination for an assessment by teachers or parents precedes the expert assessment. We show that two mechanisms drive the gender gap. First, at any level of IQ, male students are more likely to be nominated for assessment due to correlated external behaviors. This difference accounts for roughly 70% of the gender gap. Second, but less importantly, the referral threshold is lower for male students than for female students. We discuss potential policy implications.