The ‘Martha Effect’: The compounding female advantage in South African higher education
The ‘Martha Effect’: The compounding female advantage in South African higher education
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“玛莎效应”：南非高等教育中女性的复合优势
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发表时间：
2017
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通讯作者：
N. Spaull
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作者：
H. Broekhuizen;N. Spaull
在本文中，我们使用全人群的面板数据来跟踪2008年队列中的每一位南非学生，因为他们进入大学并取得进展，跟踪他们六年（N= 112，402）。我们发现了一个巨大的女性优势，继续在高等教育过程中的每一个障碍增长的无可争辩的证据。具体而言，与男性相比，我们发现有资格上大学的女性多出27%，进入大学的女性多出34%，完成任何本科学历的女性多出56%，获得学士学位的女性多出66%。尽管在入学之初，男孩和女孩的人数大致相等。我们发现，这种女性的优势仍然控制后，学校一级的表现，并存在于所有的种族，年龄，社会经济地位和原籍省的亚组。我们研究了19个研究领域，发现女性在19个领域中的12个领域获得学位的可能性要大得多（通常是相当大的差距），而在19个领域中的5个领域获得学位的可能性要小得多。然而，这几乎完全是因为她们没有机会参加这些传统上属于“男性”的课程，而不是因为完成率较低。无论学习领域、种族、年龄、社会经济地位或地点如何，女性辍学的可能性总是比男性低20%（包括在传统的“男性”领域，如工程和计算机科学）。基于阅读中的“马太效应”（富人更富），我们提出了高等教育中这种现象的性别版本的证据;我们称之为“玛莎效应”。
In this paper we use population-wide panel data to follow every South African student from the 2008 cohort as they enter into and progress through university, following them for six years (N=112,402). We find indisputable evidence of a large female advantage that continues to grow at each hurdle of the higher education process. To be specific, relative to their male counterparts we find 27% more females who qualified for university, 34% more who enroll in university, 56% more who complete any undergraduate qualification and 66% more who attain a bachelor’s degree. This despite there being roughly equal numbers of boys and girls at the start of school. We show that this female advantage remains after controlling for school-level performance, and exists for all subgroups of race, age, socioeconomic status, and province of origin. We examine 19 fields of study and find that females are significantly more likely to get a degree in 12 of the 19 fields (often by substantial margins), and are significantly less likely to get a degree in five of the 19 fields. However, this is almost entirely because they do not access these traditionally ‘male’ programs rather than due to lower completion rates. Irrespective of field of study, race, age, socioeconomic status or location, females are always and everywhere 20% less likely to dropout than their male counterparts (including in traditionally ‘male’ fields like Engineering and Computer Science). Building on the idea of the ‘Matthew Effect’ in reading (the rich get richer), we present evidence of a gendered version of this phenomenon in higher education; what we call the ‘Martha Effect’.