The effect of teacher–student gender matching: Evidence from OECD countries

While some educators argue that teacher–student gender matching improves student performance, there is little empirical evidence to support this hypothesis. This paper assesses the impact of teacher–student gender matching on academic achievement across fifteen OECD countries using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). One attractive feature of TIMSS is that it provides information on test scores and teacher characteristics, including gender, for both math and science thereby allowing for student fixed effects estimation. The results provide little support for the conjecture that students benefit from teacher–student gender matching.

► This paper examines whether teacher's gender impacts student academic achievement in multiple countries using a student fixed effect model.
► The advantages of teacher–student gender matching on student academic achievement has diminished over the last two decades in the United States.
► The empirical results do not provide convincing evidence to substantiate a universal teacher–student gender matching effect across 15 OECD countries.
► The empirical results of this paper contradict the hypothesis that assignment to a same gender teacher positively affects student performance.