Across the globe, women remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This gender gap is particularly evident in technical and vocational education and training (TVET), a sector often overlooked in policy efforts aimed at increasing women’s participation in STEM careers. Yet nearly half of the STEM workforce is employed in occupations such as mechanics, construction managers, electricians, and ICT support technicians – roles that typically require medium-level qualifications obtained through TVET pathways (Caprile et al. 2015).
At the secondary level, TVET can play an essential role in increasing student engagement and promoting advanced STEM studies. Despite the potential of these programmes to provide practical skills and prepare students for STEM careers, gender imbalance and inequality remain pervasive in secondary TVET (OECD 2020), limiting opportunities for women to enter and succeed in STEM fields (UNESCO 2020). Furthermore, with majority male teaching staff and a lack of female role models, women in upper-secondary STEM-TVET programmes often lack the support and encouragement they need to persist in STEM pathways (UNESCO 2020).
Research has long emphasised the importance of female teachers in improving educational outcomes for young women, particularly in low-income and male-dominated contexts (Card et al. 2022). Secondary TVET often attracts a disproportionate number of students from low-income backgrounds due to its historical emphasis on practical skills and immediate workforce entry. Nevertheless, until recently, the impact of female teachers in the specific context of STEM-TVET had received little attention in the broader literature on teacher gender effects.
The role model effect: Evidence from Chile
To understand how the presence of female teachers impacts young women’s persistence in STEM pathways during the transition from upper secondary TVET to higher education, we analysed administrative data from Chile’s Ministry of Education on nearly 200,000 students across nine cohorts (2007–2018). These records track students for two years in high school (11th and 12th grades) and two years afterward to capture enrolment in post-secondary STEM programmes at universities or post-secondary vocational institutions.
Our analyses rely on the variability of having at least one female teacher within the same school and the same STEM-VTE programme. This natural variation – within a single school year and across different graduating classes – helps us isolate the impact of having a female role model in the classroom on the likelihood that students, especially young women, pursue STEM studies in higher education.
Our results indicate that female students benefit from having at least one female teacher in STEM-TVET programmes, positively affecting their persistence in STEM pathways during the transition to higher education. Overall, we find a student-teacher female gender match effect of 2.1 percentage points on STEM enrolment in higher education, which is equivalent to a 9.6% increase in the probability of enrolling in these fields.
This effect is not driven by having a female teacher, only by those teaching STEM subjects in TVET. Moreover, it is not due simply to better teaching quality or more supportive classroom environments. We conducted multiple placebo tests, including examining whether female teachers in non-STEM subjects had similar effects (they did not) and whether male students were affected by the presence of a female teacher (they were not). Therefore, the findings point strongly toward a role model effect: young women see female teachers succeeding in technical STEM roles, and this helps them picture themselves in similar futures.
Stronger effects in VTE diplomas than in bachelor’s degrees
The most notable impact of female teachers was not on enrolment in STEM university degrees, which saw a slightly negative effect, but rather on enrolment in STEM diplomas. These are two- to three-year postsecondary programmes offered by technical institutes. A plausible explanation is that the presence of a female STEM-TVET teacher may influence students who were otherwise unlikely to pursue higher education and may also shift some women who would have enrolled in STEM bachelor’s degrees toward more practical STEM diploma programmes.
In fact, being taught by a female STEM-TVET teacher increases the probability of enrolling in a STEM diploma program by four percentage points. These programmes are typically more specialised and hands-on compared to traditional university degrees. This effect represents an 18% reduction in the gender gap in enrolment in STEM-TVET diplomas among graduates from secondary STEM-TVET programmes in 2018.
Specifically, the share of female students enrolling in STEM diplomas rose from 17.3% to 21.3% when they had a female STEM teacher in high school, an increase that accounts for a substantial narrowing of the gender gap in technical STEM enrolment at the postsecondary level.
Conclusion and policy implications: More women teaching STEM in secondary TVET
We conclude by emphasising the importance of providing young women, particularly those from low-income settings, early opportunities to enter and persist in STEM-related educational paths. Our study looked at school factors – such as teacher genders – during the critical transition from high school to higher education, providing strong evidence of the positive impact that female teachers have on boosting female STEM enrolment in postsecondary TVET. Therefore, we advocate for expanding efforts to recruit more female professionals in STEM fields as teachers who can serve as role models in TVET high schools.
Increasing the number of female STEM teachers is not a simple task. The pool of women with technical STEM training who are qualified and willing to teach at the secondary level remains limited. Addressing this challenge requires targeted recruitment strategies encouraging women in STEM fields to consider teaching careers. This includes offering scholarships, financial incentives, and structured pathways into the profession. Just as important, female STEM professionals entering the classroom need support. Pedagogical training and mentoring programmes are essential to ensuring they are present and well-equipped to teach effectively, build strong connections with students, and act as agents of change within their schools.
Source: cepr.org
