First Impressions Matter: Instructor Gender and Women’s Persistence in Economics

June 2026

Using near-random assignment of students to instructors in introductory economics at a broad-access public university, we study how instructor gender affects women’s persistence in economics. Female instructors close roughly 40 percent of the gender gap in advanced economics course-taking, with a similar but less precisely estimated improvement in major completion. The effect is concentrated in the first introductory course: exposure to a female instructor in the second course adds no detectable persistence benefit once the first instructor’s gender is accounted for. Female instructors also improve women’s relative performance in introductory economics, but grades explain no more than about one-third of the gender-match effect. Class fixed effects and the absence of a detectable male-student response make it difficult to attribute the effect to general instructor quality. The remaining effect is consistent with mechanisms related to belonging, representation, identity, role modeling, or perceived fit. The findings point to introductory-course staffing as a practical tool for shaping women’s persistence in economics.

Keywords

gender, economics education, major choice, role models, human capital

Education level

Post-secondary education

Topics

Pathways to and Through Postsecondary