Gender peer effects in university: Evidence from a randomized experiment

•Previous studies found that higher shares of females increase academic performance.•Few studies focused on gender peer effects in university or conducted field experiments.•Our experiment in university shows no substantial gender peer effects on achievement.•At higher girls shares, though, boys postpone dropping out and perform poorer in math.•Students do perceive effects on their own, and their peers’ behavior.

Recent studies for primary and secondary education find positive effects of the share of females in the classroom on achievement of males and females. This study examines whether these results can be extrapolated to higher education. We conduct an experiment in which the shares of females in workgroups for first year students in economics and business are manipulated and students are randomly assigned to these groups. Males tend to postpone, but not abandon, their dropout decision when surrounded by more females and perform worse on courses with high math content. There is also a modest reduction in absenteeism early in the year. Overall, however, we find no substantial gender peer effects on achievement. This in spite of the fact that according to students’ perceptions, both their own, and their peers’ behavior are influenced by the share of females.