Gendered effects of labels on advanced course enrollment

This paper investigates gender differences in how high school students react to standardized test performance labels regarding their advanced math and English enrollment decisions. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that women labeled as not proficient in math are less likely to enroll in advanced math courses than their proficient-labeled peers. In English, the effect of labels on women’s enrollment decisions is smaller and noisier. While, on average, men enroll in advanced classes at a lower rate than women, men’s likelihood of enrollment is not impacted by the labels they receive, regardless of subject. These findings highlight unintended consequences of testing practices that affect human capital investment decisions differentially by gender, potentially contributing to the persistent underrepresentation of women in male-dominated fields.