School Gender Composition and Academic Performance: Evidence from Transition from Single-Sex to Coeducational Schools

Jungmin Lee ; Hye Yeon Park

Jungmin Lee, Professor, Department of Economics, Seoul National University & IZA, Seoul, South Korea jmlee90@snu.ac.kr
Hye Yeon Park, Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea

JEL Classification: I2, J1, H5

Abstract

We examine how the gender composition of students within schools affects their academic performance. For causal identification, we exploit within-school variation in the gender composition because of policy-driven transitions from single-sex to coeducational schools. In Seoul, South Korea, several high schools were converted from single-sex to coeducational schools between 1998 and 2003, by the city superintendent’s Coeducational School Expansion Policy. We find that boys’ test score dropped when their schools began to admit girls based on administrative test score data on standardized college entrance examination. However, the negative effect disappeared when the school transition was complete. We find no effect on girls who were admitted to previously boys-only schools.

Keywords:

Gender composition of students, Single-sex schools, Coeducational schools, High school academic performance, College entrance examination score

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank discussants and seminar participants at the CSWEP session of the ASSA meetings, the Asian Conference on Applied Micro and Econometrics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Korean Society of Labor Economists for their valuable comments. This paper is based on the Master’s thesis of Hye Yeon Park. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016S1A5A2A01025292).

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