Spatial Variations in the Impact of Covid-19 on the Educational Gender Gap in English Secondary Schools

Campisano, Bruna and Migali, Giuseppe and Bradley, Steve (2024) Spatial Variations in the Impact of Covid-19 on the Educational Gender Gap in English Secondary Schools. Working Paper. Lancaster University, Department of Economics, Lancaster.

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Abstract

We investigate the effects of Covid-19 on spatial variations in gender differences in educational attainment in English secondary schools. Spatial variations in various measures of Covid-19 incidence rates at the Travel-to-Work-Areas are explored. Since all parts of the UK were affected by Covid-19, spatial variations in Covid-19 are regarded as variations in the ’dose’ of the virus - the higher the dose the greater the impact. Employing a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) framework with fixed effects for year, school and TTWA, and controlling for selection effects, we estimate the causal effect on the gender gap in high school test scores at age 16. We find that, when comparing schools in TTWAs in the treatment to their counterparts in the control group, there is a statistically significant and positive effect on the educational gender gap in favor of females of between 0.3 and 0.6 points. Girls at the upper end of the attainment distribution achieved much better scores. Robustness checks show that school composition and area effects are important. We explore the implications for education policy.