Léa DOUSSET will present a joint work with Georgia Thebault entitled The End of a Gender Quota in Elite Higher Education.

 

Abstract: Can gender quotas in elite higher education help close the gender gap in math-intensive fields? We use original hand-collected historical data from the entrance exam of one of France's most competitive graduate schools and exploit a sudden change in admission policy that removed a hard gender-based quota system. We document that the end of the quota led to a sharp drop in the percentage of admitted female candidates, but only in math-intensive fields. We then focus on the mathematics entrance exam to delve into the mechanisms. We show that half of this decline is explained by a mechanical gender performance gap. Strikingly, the other half can be attributed to a behavioral response: after the quota was lifted, there was a decrease in the supply of female candidates at the entrance exam, and this decline was concentrated among high-potential female candidates. This turning-away mechanism reveals the unintended consequences of removing gender quotas in real-world competitive contexts. As this elite graduate school leads to high-level academic careers in France, we show that the removal of the gender quota increased the gender gap in academic careers for affected students.