Ana Trindade Ribeiro
Graduate Student Fellowship | 2021 - 2022 Academic Year
Can Gender Gaps in College Placement and Labor Market Outcomes Be Explained by Differences in Test-Taking Behavior?
Ana Trindade Ribeiro's job market paper investigates to what extent gendered behavior can explain female underperformance at high-stakes tests, a well-documented phenomena across many countries (Brazil, Chile, China, US, etc.) and that affects women’s placement into the opportunities ranging from choice of schools to job offers. Trindade Ribeiro uses an experiment to measure a pattern of behavior interpreted as thoroughness in the test-taking environment, which is often associated with women and may not be optimal in a time-constrained test. By varying the time limit condition, this experiment investigates to what extent test-taking thoroughness can explain the gender gap in performance.
Ana Trindade Ribeiro, School of Education
Ana Trindade Ribeiro is a PhD student in the economics of education program at Stanford. Trindade Ribeiro's research focuses on issues of inequality of opportunities in educational and labor market settings, in particular in Brazil. Building on evidence of gender differences in performance at college admissions exams and female underrepresentation in selective programs from China, Chile, Turkey, and Brazil, her job market paper combines experimental and observational data to investigate gender differences in test-taking behavior as a potential explanation for this gap. The experiment Trindade Ribeiro designed allows her to measure thoroughness, a behavior commonly attributed to women, as a test-taking behavior, and estimate how its interaction with stricter time constraints affects the size of the gender gap in performance. The results from this analysis will also help inform estimates of counterfactual gender gaps in performance for the Brazilian college admissions exam and pre-hiring assessment tests under more relaxed time limits.