Helene Willadsen presents at Trygfonden seminar at Aarhus University
On April 25th DISTRACT postdoc Helene Willadsen presented on gendered differences in choice of education at a Trygfonden seminar at Aarhus University.
At the seminar Helene Willadsen presented the paper 'Gender Differences in Choice of Educational Field: Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey Experiment' authored with Anne Toft Hansen, Michael A. Kuhn, and Sally Sadoff.
By analyzing data from a large-scale survey experiment among almost 20,000 college applicants in Denmark the authors find that the gender difference in choice of major is driven by women expecting a larger tradeoff than men between how female a major is and educational (work) satisfaction. Their results suggest that women are deterred from male dominated fields largely due to expectations of poor classroom and workplace experiences. These findings inform policies aimed at shifting the gender composition of college majors and subsequent gender earnings gaps.