Home Economics and Women's Gateway to Science

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dc.contributor.authorAndrews, Michael
dc.contributor.authorZhao, Yiling
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-07T14:08:04Z
dc.date.available2024-08-07T14:08:04Z
dc.date.issued2024-01-26
dc.description.abstractWe propose that collegiate home economics programs in the early 20th century introduced a generation of women to science, especially biology and chemistry. Using college-level data from the 1910 Commissioner of Education report and a collection of historical college yearbooks spanning 1900-1940, we document that a 10 percentage points increase in the share of women in home economics led to a roughly 3 percentage points increase in the share of women majoring in science. We demonstrate that the result is driven by exposure to science in the historical home economics curricula rather than through selection bias or faculty role model effects. By linking colleges to recent educational data, we provide suggestive evidence for the persistent impact of historical curricula decisions on modern day gender gaps in STEM fields.
dc.description.sponsorshipWe thank Katherine Giannini for outstanding research assistance. We also thank Zach Bleemer, Joe Ferrie, Jacob French, Carola Frydman, David Mitch, Joel Mokyr, Melanie Xue, and Sangyoon Park for their thoughts and comments on this work. This paper benefited from participants’ comments at Northwestern University; the Washington Area Economic History Workshop; the Social Science History Association Meetings; Jinan University; the Hong Kong University Quantitative History Webinar; the Allied Social Science Association Meetings; the UC Davis/LSE Virtual Economic History Workshop; the Association for Study of Religion, Science, and Culture conference; the NBER Development of the American Economy Summer Institute; the Economic History Association meetings; Marquette University; and the Stanford Institute of Theoretical Economics Conference. All remaining errors are our own. The authors are grateful for financial support from the School of Economics at Peking University, the Balzan Foundation and Northwestern’s Center for Economic History.
dc.description.urihttps://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=4708155
dc.format.extent91 pages
dc.genrejournal articles
dc.genrepreprints
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2o322-det7
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4708155
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/35265
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Economics Department
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.subjectGender gap in STEM
dc.subjectHigher education
dc.subjectEconomic History
dc.subjectHome Economics
dc.titleHome Economics and Women's Gateway to Science
dc.typeText

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