Title: Gender Differences in Reactions to Failure in High-Stakes Competition: Evidence from the National College Entrance Exam Retakes

Speaker：Peng Zhang, Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen)

Time：10: 00 – 11:30, 20 May, 2021

Venue：Room 106, Zhonghui Building, Shipai Campus, Jinan University

About the Speaker

Peng Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Economics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. His main research areas are environmental, development, health, and labor economics. He has published in various economics journals, including The Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, and Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. He obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2016.

Abstract

We document the gender differences in reactions to failure in the National College Entrance Exam in China, an important high-stakes competition that determines the admission of students into almost all higher education institutions. Using unique administrative data and exploiting a regression-discontinuity design, we find that students who score just below the tier-2 university cutoff have an 8 percentage points higher probability of retaking the exam in the next year, and retaking improves the exam performance and admission outcomes substantially. However, women are less likely to retake than men with similar exam performance, and the cutoff-induced retakes are also much more pronounced for men than for women. The gender disparity in the tendency to retake has important implications for the gender differences in exam performance and representation in high-quality higher education institutions, and for gender inequality in labor market.