The long-term effects of historical gender imbalances on children's educational achievement in Australia

Abstract

This paper investigates how historically male-biased sex ratio has shaped children’s educational achievement in Australia. The analysis exploits quasi-random variation in local sex ratios arising from the nineteenth-century convict transportation system, which allocated overwhelmingly male convicts across colonies according to labour demand, creating large and uneven gender imbalances. By linking historical census data to contemporary longitudinal records on children, the analysis uses the convict sex ratio as an instrument for the total population historical sex ratio. The results show that children living in areas with more male-biased populations in the 1840s achieve significantly lower test scores in numeracy and writing today, with effects concentrated among boys and at later stages of compulsory schooling. These effects persist after accounting for detailed individual, family, school, and geographic controls. Evidence on mechanisms suggests that the persistence of these effects reflects weaker educational incentives for men and enduring local norms surrounding gender and masculinity in historically male-biased areas.