Early gender test score gaps across OECD countries

Abstract

The results reported in this paper contribute to the debate about gender skill gaps in at least three ways. First, we document the large differences in early gender gaps across developed countries using a large scale, modern, representative data source. Second, we show that countries with pro-female sorting, countries that place girls in classes with higher than average scores have smaller gender test score gaps, at least in math. Third, we show that the degree of academic tracking is correlated with observed gender gaps across developed countries.