Table 3

Means of Selected Core Variables by Gender— Twelfth Graders

Core Variables	1976–88			1989–99			2000–2009
Core Variables	Boys	Girls		Boys	Girls		Boys	Girls
Subjective school ability index	0.652	0.651		0.658	0.654		0.664	0.658	*
Educational expectations: Index of likeliness to attend^{^a}
Army	0.281	0.102	*	0.215	0.078	*	0.202	0.079	*
Vocational	0.319	0.264	*	0.268	0.210	*	0.274	0.208	*
Two-year college	0.338	0.364	*	0.362	0.370	*	0.383	0.386
Four-year college	0.584	0.585		0.702	0.758	*	0.737	0.816	*
Graduate or professional	0.389	0.385	*	0.471	0.530	*	0.490	0.571	*
Education aspirations: Want to attend dummy
Army	0.203	0.092	*	0.177	0.079	*	0.179	0.078	*
Vocational	0.284	0.219	*	0.207	0.141	*	0.203	0.124	*
Two-year college	0.206	0.293	*	0.214	0.256	*	0.240	0.266	*
Four-year college	0.635	0.650	*	0.744	0.810	*	0.773	0.850	*
Graduate or professional	0.416	0.432	*	0.529	0.613	*	0.519	0.625	*
High school program:
Academic	0.487	0.514	*	0.550	0.611	*	0.518	0.589	*
General	0.300	0.307	*	0.283	0.272	*	0.328	0.298	*
Vocational	0.155	0.120	*	0.107	0.068	*	0.081	0.049	*
Other	0.059	0.060		0.059	0.049	*	0.073	0.065	*
Cigarette smoking: less than one-half pack	0.212	0.260	*	0.258	0.260		0.217	0.201	*
Alcohol binging last two weeks: two to nine times	0.307	0.167	*	0.231	0.127	*	0.197	0.121	*
Father not same household	0.169	0.185	*	0.201	0.228	*	0.207	0.244	*
Mother working all the time	0.201	0.234	*	0.353	0.398	*	0.462	0.495	*
Father: some high school	0.145	0.154	*	0.101	0.110	*	0.098	0.108	*
Father: completed college	0.190	0.176	*	0.230	0.214	*	0.253	0.225	*
Mother: some high school	0.126	0.149	*	0.082	0.101	*	0.071	0.082	*
Mother: completed college	0.164	0.146	*	0.234	0.211	*	0.290	0.257	*
Works over school year Number of observations	0.848	0.798	*	0.801	0.792	*	0.755	0.756
Works over school year Number of observations	74,230	79,942		60,469	66,875		50,549	57,202

Notes: Asterisk indicates statistically significant gender difference at the 5 percent level. Means of other variables and other categories are reported in Fortin, Oreopoulos, and Phipps (2013).
↵a The four categories of likeliness are: definitively won’t, probably won’t, probably will, definitively will.