The toys that made us: The role of game in gender gaps

Early gender gaps condition future educational decisions and labor market and social outcomes. There is extensive evidence reporting the existence of significant gender gaps in mathematical and scientific competencies at age 15. It has been suggested these patterns may explain why men tend to make a clean sweep on STEM careers. This has led to a debate on which factors may be driving gender gaps in educational outcomes. While some authors point to the existence of differences in psychological traits by gender, others focus on external factors, such as socioeconomic characteristics, parental values and educational trajectories. Another factor which is sometimes claimed to be a relevant determinant of the gender gap in performance are socially determined gender roles. Evidence on this last point has been however rarely tested. In this paper we shed light on this issue. We do so by exploring the relationship between the use of leisure time in science-related activities at early ages and the emergence of gender gaps in performance and career expectations at age 15. We take advantage of intra and across country variation for a set of countries. Results show that game patterns at early ages are decisive for explaining gender gaps in performance. Boys have a higher likelihood of playing brick games when they are at preschool, as well as several science related activities at age 10. More time spent in science-related leisure activities influences performance in grade 4 and at age 15, and, in turn, STEM expectations. In this sense, childhood play patterns contribute to explaining gender gaps in mathematics and science achievement, as well as in STEM expectations. Gender-differentiated play dynamics from an early age can explain the widening of gender gaps several grades later. These results contribute to identifying how certain play practices and leisure activities in childhood may eventually bias mathematics and science achievement and preferences between girls and boys. The implications for an education policy committed to equal educational opportunities are discussed.