Gender Streaming and Prior Achievement in High School Science and Mathematics

Women's underrepresentation in mathematically intensive fields is often attributed to gender differences in mathematical ability. We test this hypothesis using administrative data on two half-cohorts of Israeli eighth-grade students. These students exhibit recognized gendered patterns in their subsequent choice of advanced matriculation electives: girls favour biology and chemistry while boys favour physics and computer science. Linking these choices to eighth-grade standardized test scores, we find that these gendered patterns remain largely intact after controlling for prior achievement, indicating that they are not driven by gender differences in mathematical ability, nor are they explained by boys’ comparative advantage in mathematics.