While gender gaps in average math performance are close to zero in developed countries, women are still strongly underrepresented among math high performers. Using data from five successive waves of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), we show that this underrepresentation...

This paper, based on a large-scale field experiment, tests whether a one-hour exposure to external female role models with a background in science affects students' perceptions and choice of field of study. Using a random assignment of classroom interventions carried out by 56 female scientists...

Discrimination against women is seen as one of the possible causes behind their underrepresentation in certain STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects. We show that this is not the case at the competitive exams used to recruit almost all French secondary and...

Gender differences in math performance are now small in developed countries and they cannot explain on their own the strong under-representation of women in math-related fields. This latter result is however no longer true once gender differences in reading performance are also taken into...

The so-called "gender-equality paradox" is the fact that gender segregation across occupations is more pronounced in more egalitarian and more developed countries. Some scholars have explained this paradox by the existence of deeply rooted or intrinsic gender differences in preferences that...

This paper, based on a large-scale field experiment, tests whether a one-hour exposure to external female role models with a background in science affects students' perceptions and choice of field of study. Using a random assignment of classroom interventions carried out by 56 female scientists...