Semiparametric decomposition of the gender achievement gap: an application for Turkey

This study employs a semiparametric Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) decomposition to investigate the gender PISA test score gap in mathematics/science in Turkey. This technique, which has not previously appeared in the gender achievement gap literature, relaxes the parametric assumptions of the standard OB decomposition, accounts for the possible violation of the common support assumption, and allows us to explore the gender test score gap not only at the mean but also across the test score distribution. The results from the semiparametric OB decomposition of the mean test score gap indicate that girls outperform boys in science whereas the gap is not statistically significant in mathematics. We also find that the mean gap fails to uncover the heterogeneous pattern that the gap exhibits across the distribution.