Gender Differences in the Educational Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Girls’ math and reading scores declined more than boys’ during the pandemic, but these gender differences varied substantially across communities. Using test score data from roughly 7,000 U.S. school districts, we investigate how local context shaped these patterns. Community socioeconomic resources buffered children against the negative academic consequences of the pandemic, and these protections were substantially stronger for girls than for boys. In high-resource communities, pandemic disruption had little differential effect on girls and boys, while in low-resource communities, disruptions produced larger academic declines for girls than boys. This resulted in gender gaps shifting toward boys on average, but especially in low-resource settings with high levels of community disruption. These patterns suggest that the gendered allocation of resources is shaped by family and community context, perhaps because gender norms—which shape expectations, opportunities, and resource allocation—are more deeply activated in conditions of disruption and resource scarcity.