Closing the Gender Divide in STEM The impact of female college professors on female student performance

This study examines the role model effects of female professors on female students’ aca- demic performance. We leverage student-professor matched data from STEM Bachelor’s programs at Sapienza University, the largest university in Europe, covering the period from 2017 to 2022. We exploit a quasi-experimental design based on the quasi-random assignment of students to professors of different genders due to the section composition of large classes based only on last name initials. Our findings show that the presence of female role models significantly benefits female students, both by narrowing the performance gap with male peers at the exam level and by improving long-term academic outcomes, such as meeting progression benchmarks and increasing persistence in the program. Importantly, we find no evidence of negative effects on male students’ performance. From a policy perspective, fostering the presence of female instructors in first-year courses may enhance female students’ performance, while also enhancing a less gendered perception of STEM fields among male students.