The 24th Annual Meeting of the Chilean Economics Association (SECHI) that took place between September 4th and 6th in Concepción gathered speakers from national and international universities. Our associate, Andrés García Echalar presented his paper “Faculty Gender and Student Performance in Male- and Female-dominated Careers.” This project, which is join work with Francisca Torres, investigates the impact of teachers’ gender on student performance in highly gender-segregated programs.
The researchers uses data from a Chilean university over a ten-year period and found that female professors have a positive impact on students’ grades. In fields dominated by women, only female students see an improvement in their grades when taught by a female professor. In contrast, in male-dominated fields, female professors enhance the grades of both male and female students. Furthermore, the effect is more pronounced in larger classes and among high-achieving students.
This year edition of the SECHI meeting had three keynote speakers, including James Robinson, Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, Linda Tesar, Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan, and Rosario Macera, Assistant Professor at the School of Management at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
