1. Does Classroom Gender Composition Affect School Dropout? Bulent Anil Tuba Toru Delibaşı Gokce Uysal 2/19/20161Labor Market Network Meeting

2. Introduction Does the gender composition of peers affect academic achievement? – Achievement: Drop-out decision of students. Transition from 8th to 9th grade. – Gender composition of peers: the ratio of female students to class size. What do we find? It is nice to have girls in your class! 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting2

3. What we do We can disentangle academic peer effects and gender peer effects. – Academic peer effects: if your classmates are doing well, you do better. – Gender peer effects: the gender composition has an effect on your academic success. We study the transition from compulsory to non-compulsory education. 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting3

4. What we find Even though girls are more likely to drop out, having more girls in the section decreases the probability that students drop out. Possible channels: – Academic peer effects (not in our case) – Competition driven by traditional gender roles (boys should do better than girls) – Potential detrimental effects of single gender – Socioeconomic background effects 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting4

5. Literature Papers: Confounded academic peer effects and gender peer effects – Girls are doing better academically. If you have more girls in the classroom, you do better (Hoxby, 2000;Levy and Schlosser, 2011; Gotfried et al., 2013; Hu, 2015) Single-sex education is better (Whitmore, 2005) Higher share of the opposite gender among school friends reduces the academic achievement (Hill, 2015) Nothing on gender-peer effects in Turkey 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting5

6. Literature Dropout: – Student’s preference, i.e., lower expectation from graduation (Eckstein and Wolpin, 1999) – Myopic behavior (Oreopoulos, 2007) – Family structure (Astone and McLanahan, 1994) – Family income (Belley, Frenette and Lochner, 2008) – Parents’ education and their valuation of education (Folley, Gallipoli and Green, 2014) Tansel (2002) – Determinants of the gender gap in enrollment after mandotary school – Income, parental education, location and migration Kirdar (2009) – Ethnic disparities on enrollment – Gender gap 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting6

7. Institutional framework Transition from 8 th to 9 th is voluntary Students assigned to the closest school (except for private schools, 2-3%) Random assignment across sections Students take all of their classes in the same section, with the same classmates. 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting7

8. Data e-Okul / e-School: universal More than 1 million students, many have missing data: 672 thousand students About 18 thousand schools Data on students’ academic background, family background and schools 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting8

9. Estimation strategy Reduced form Baseline model: logit (also tried probit) Different specifications: – Males vs. females – Public vs. private – Non-linear effects 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting9

10. Model specification Dependent variable: School Dropout Independent variables: – School & Class Share of females in class, average SBS scores (class & school), school type, school resources (students per teacher, number of teacher (FT), class size, labs, etc.) – Individual Age, gender, SBS score, academic performance indicators (math, science, Turkish and GPA), – Family Parent’s age, employment, education, income, number of siblings, CCT – Geographic Province, urban/rural 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting10

11. Descriptive statistics 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting11 VariableObsMean VariableObsMean School Dropout11844620.1948Middle Income10037660.4440 Share of Females in class11891560.4707Upper middle income10037660.2380 Class Average of SBS Score1186680296.6816High income10037660.0200 School Average of SBS score1187752297.8950Conditional Cash Transfer11891560.0481 Female11891560.4707GPA (SD)11728190.0000 Age118915415.1556Maths (SD)11844890.0000 Number of siblings11891562.3261Science (SD)11838140.0000 Mother's Age117673341.3486Turkish (SD)11836170.0000 Father's Age118915645.1573Student SBS Grade11891560.8568 Mother Primary7623440.1851Private11891560.0276 Mother Middle School7623440.6797Dorm11891560.0360 Mother High School7623440.0999Minority11891560.0002 Mother Higher Educ.7623440.0353Public11891560.9364 Father Primary7718930.0642Student per Teacher118778426.5878 Father Middle School7718930.6816Number of Teacher (FT)11877840.8212 Father High School7718930.1710Science Lab11891560.8288 Father Higher Educ.7718930.0832Multipurpose Lab11891560.5589 Father works7755830.9410Class size118915631.2677 Mother works7632240.2095Village11891560.1054 Low income10037660.0416County11891560.0850 Lower middle income10037660.2564 Urban11891560.8096

12. Estimation Results I: Benchmark Model 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting12 VARIABLESBenchmarkAverage Marginal Effect Share of Females in class-0.420***-0.0375 Class Average of SBS Score-0.0126***-0.0011 School Average of SBS score0.00413***-0.0004 Female1.020***0.0911 Number of siblings0.135***0.0121 Mother's Age0.008***-0.0007 Father's Age-0.0179***-0.0016 Father works-0.0377**-0.0034 Mother works-0.0274**-0.0024 Conditional Cash Transfer0.01930.0017 GPA (SD)-0.298***-0.0267 Maths (SD)-0.205***-0.0183 Science (SD)-0.271***-0.0242 Turkish (SD)-0.379***-0.0338 Student SBS Grade-2.308***-0.2063 Private0.0009170.0001 Boarding school0.371***0.0332 Minority-1.074-0.0960 Student per Teacher0.00729***0.0010 Number of Teacher (Permanent contract)-0.368***-0.0329 Average class size-0.0136***-0.0005 Village0.777***0.0694 County0.232***0.0207 n661866 *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

13. Benchmark results Gender peer effects – 1 percent increase in the share of females in a student’s class decreases their probability of dropping out by 3.75 pp. – Even though girls are 9.1 pp more likely to drop out. Academic peer effects Usual suspects: – Students less likely to drop out if parents work – CCT – Academic background is controlled for – School resources 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting13

14. Estimation Results II: Females&Males 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting14 VARIABLESInteractionFemaleMaleFemale NonlinearMale Nonlinear Share of Female in class-0.397***-0.305***-0.864***-0.603*-1.954*** Share of Female*Female-0.0500 Square Share of Female in class0.2941.290*** Female1.043*** Class Average of SBS Score-0.0126***-0.0142***-0.0110***-0.0142***-0.0110*** School Average of SBS score-0.00413***-0.00462***-0.00400***-0.00463***-0.00398*** Number of siblings0.135***0.161***0.115***0.161***0.115*** Mother's Age-0.00800***-0.00520***-0.0105***-0.00520***-0.0105*** Father's Age-0.0179***-0.0211***-0.0152***-0.0211***-0.0152*** Father works-0.0377**-0.0262-0.0389*-0.0263-0.0399* Mother works-0.0274**-0.0856***0.0245*-0.0856***0.0244 Conditional Cash Transfer0.01920.01970.01800.01990.0202 GPA (SD)-0.298***-0.191***-0.390***-0.191***-0.390*** Maths (SD)-0.205***-0.314***-0.109***-0.314***-0.110*** Science (SD)-0.271***-0.293***-0.281***-0.293***-0.282*** Turkish (SD)-0.379***-0.344***-0.409***-0.344***-0.409*** Student SBS Grade-2.308***-2.648***-2.115***-2.648***-2.117*** Private0.001050.0770-0.05970.0766-0.0647 Boarding school0.373***0.339***0.411***0.333***0.379*** Minority-1.071-0.894--0.900- Student per Teacher0.00727***-0.001500.0150***-0.001410.0149*** Number of Teacher (FT)-0.368***-0.591***-0.157***-0.590***-0.158*** Student per Class-0.0136***-0.0140***-0.0120***-0.0138***-0.0109*** Village0.777***0.889***0.707***0.889***0.702*** County0.232***0.358***0.124***0.358***0.124*** n661866318059343786318059343786 *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

15. Results: Females & Males Do the effects differ by student’s gender? Interaction term suggests otherwise. Try for females and males: they seem to be different. The coefficients on gender peer effects are different, i.e. higher for males. Effects seem to be linear for females and non-linear for males. 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting15

16. Estimation Results III: Other Specifications 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting16 VARIABLESRuralUrbanPrivate Share of Female in class-0.540***-0.425***0.436 Class Average of SBS Score-0.0116***-0.0129***-0.00622* School Average of SBS score-0.00176***-0.00562***-0.00855* Female1.309***0.923***0.143 Number of siblings0.118***0.140***0.125 Mother's Age-0.00106-0.0106***0.0287 Father's Age-0.0167***-0.0183***-0.0763*** Father works-0.00976-0.0546***0.452 Mother works0.0216-0.0466***-0.340 Conditional Cash Transfer0.02880.0140- GPA (SD)-0.232***-0.311***-0.134 Maths (SD)-0.282***-0.191***-0.292* Science (SD)-0.252***-0.286***-0.267* Turkish (SD)-0.307***-0.403***0.246* Student SBS Grade-2.299***-2.324***-3.011*** Private-0.208**-0.0964 Boarding school0.147***0.473***0.00270 Minority--1.205-1.787* Student per Teacher0.00769***-0.00979***-0.395 Number of Teacher (FT)-0.636***-0.161***0.432*** Student per Class-0.0267***-0.00923*** n1243545375127271 *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

17. Other specifications Gender peer effects somewhat stronger in rural areas. We cannot explain much in private schools. 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting17

18. Conclusion Turkey vs. developed world: – Females are more likely to drop out – Still, it helps to have girls in your class. – We can disentangle gender peer effects and academic peer effects. Policy implication: single-gender schools may not be as beneficial. The question remains: How does this work? What are the channels? 2/19/2016Labor Market Network Meeting18