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EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES TO “COUNT”? A LONGITUDINAL POPULATION STUDY ABOUT CHOICE OF STEM AT UNIVERSITY BY GENDER

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  • Patrizia Giannantoni,
  • Patrizia Falzetti
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/ijas-17023

Published 2025-12-30

Keywords

  • STEM,
  • Gender gap,
  • University,
  • Math skills,
  • Population,
  • Longitudinal data
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Giannantoni, P., & Falzetti, P. (2025). EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES TO “COUNT”? A LONGITUDINAL POPULATION STUDY ABOUT CHOICE OF STEM AT UNIVERSITY BY GENDER. Italian Journal of Applied Statistics. https://doi.org/10.36253/ijas-17023

Copyright (c) 2024 Patrizia Giannantoni, Patrizia Falzetti

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Extensive research has reported that Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines are perceived as “male fields”. This erratic belief is largely responsible for gender gap observed in school and to the underrepresentation of women in STEM majors at university and in the labour market. This paper examines the factors that influence boys’ and girls’ decisions to enrol in STEM, making use of a longitudinal population dataset obtained by joining together Italian data from Ministry of education, University Register and INVALSI census test. We investigate the role of math skills, as well as individual and family characteristics, as predictors of STEM academic choices. Key findings highlight the central influence of math ability on the choice of STEM studies, particularly when assessed through teachers’ grades, and reveal an opposite effect of mother’s education on STEM enrolment by gender: increasing the likelihood of STEM selection for girls while decreasing it for boys.

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