Gender role models and early-career decisions

This paper analyzes the link between the subject choices of German students in upper secondary school and teacher gender when these choices are taken. Our results corroborate the hypothesis that teacher gender matters in this regard, and they indicate that girls respond more strongly than boys to same-sex role models. This is in particular the case in maths: Girls who have a female maths teacher in grade 10 are significantly more likely to choose maths as an advanced course in upper secondary school than girls who are taught by a male teacher. We do not find a corresponding same-sex teacher effect in maths for boys. In contrast, both girls' and boys' choices of German as an advanced course in upper secondary school are, at least to some extent, influenced by teacher gender in grade 10. However, also this same-sex teacher effect tends to be smaller for boys than for girls.