Gender Gap in Economics and Business Studies Enrollment

In August, the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) published a discussion paper on "Gender Differences in Economics and Business Studies Enrollment Rates." The research was conducted by Atsushi Inoue (NIRA Research Institute for Development and Administration) and Faculty Fellow Ryuichi Tanaka using the "Longitudinal Survey of Babies in the 21st Century (Born in 2001)." Currently, the female ratio in economics and business departments at four-year universities in Japan remains at approximately 30%. The study positions economics and business departments as "science within liberal arts" and comparatively analyzes the factors for choosing economics and business departments among liberal arts students and the factors for choosing science departments. The analysis revealed that being good at mathematics in the first year of high school shows a positive relationship with choosing both science departments and economics/business departments, while being good at Japanese shows a negative relationship. Meanwhile, having a desired occupation shows a positive relationship with choosing science departments but a negative relationship with choosing economics/business departments. Using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method, the analysis showed that 49% of the gender gap in science department enrollment can be explained by observable attribute differences such as subject aptitude, while only 14% of the economics/business department enrollment gap can be explained. This suggests that most of the gender gap in economics/business department selection is caused by factors other than observed attributional factors.