The early bird gets the worm: age of entry to STEM-related academic education – gender and SES differences

Figures & data

Table 1. Definition and description of variables, descriptive statistics.

Variable	Definition	Mean %	(SD)
Dependent variable
Age of entering academic institution (total sample)	Continuous variable in years	23.18	(2.26)
Men		23.79	(2.08)
Women		22.19	(2.20)
Independent variables
Parental SES	1 = higher SES, 0 = lower SES (was calculated using two variables: parental academic degree and economic parental background. Those whose at least one parent held an academic degree and the economic parental background was high, were coded 1, and else 0).	30.5%
Gender	1 = women, 0 = men	37.8%
Control variables
Participation in preparatory program	1 = yes, 0 = no	24.1%
Taking ‘Big trip’	1 = yes, 0 = no	50.5%
Length of Military or National Service	Continuous variable in months	29.46	(16.97)
Religiosity	1 = atheist or secular (comparison group)	55.4%
	2 = traditional	20.3%
	3 = religious or orthodox	24.3%

Table 2. Age of entering academic institution by gender and SES before (Univariate analysis) and after entering control variables (ANCOVA analysis).

	Men		Women
	Low SES a	High SES b	Low SES c	High SES d	F
Mean	24.02^cd	23.25 ^c	22.08^ab	22.40 ^a	16.069***
(SD)	(2.05)	(2.09)	(2.41)	(1.68)
Adj. Mean	23.54 ^bcd	22.67^a	22.85 ^a	22.89 ^a	7.353***

Note. a,b,c,d Means with different symbols are significantly different from one another (p < 0.05) in the Bonferroni test. Adjusted mean based upon control variables mentioned on Table 1. Adjusted grand mean of age entering = 22.99.

***p < 0.001.

Table 3. Hierarchical linear regression for age of entering academic institution.

	Model 1			Model 2
	B	SE	Beta	B	SE	Beta
Constant	20.60***	0.27		20.70***	0.27
Gender	−0.39*	0.20	−0.08	−0.67***	0.23	−0.14
Parental SES	−0.49**	0.20	−0.10	−0.86***	0.25	−0.18
Religiosity (compared to ‘atheist or secular’)
Traditional	0.14	0.23	0.03	0.11	0.23	0.02
Religious	0.31	0.22	0.06	0.35	0.22	0.07
Length of Military or National Service	0.08***	0.01	0.61	0.08***	0.01	0.61
Taking Big trip	1.34***	0.27	0.20	1.36***	0.27	0.20
Preparatory program	0.92***	0.21	0.17	0.88***	0.21	0.17
Interaction: Parental SES*Gender				0.92*	0.39	0.13
R^2	0.54			0.55

Note. ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05.

Figure 1. Plot of marginal means of age entering academic institution by gender and parental SES.

A line graph displaying the marginal means of age at which individuals enter academic institutions, categorized by gender and parental socio-economic status (SES). The graph illustrates distinct lines for each gender across various SES levels, indicating trends and disparities in age of academic entry.