Dissertation: Gendering Professions: An Analysis of Peer Effects

Summary: Professional identity is an important contributor to the career decisions of professionals including persistence in the profession and specialization choices. When professional identities within a profession differ systematically by sex, these identity-dependent decisions contribute to the sex-segregation of professions or their specialties. How do professional identity formation processes differ between men and women in a profession? The literature on professional identity formation has been under-tested. In decades of research, there has been little conclusive evidence as to which socialization mechanisms contribute to professional identity formation or how these mechanisms may be gendered. This dissertation provides the first conclusive evidence for peer influence and gendered peer influence on professional identity formation in engineering. Using the quasi-experiment of roommate assignment, conduct a causal test of peer influence on the development of a professional identity as an engineer. I find evidence that men are influenced by their male peers, and find no such influence among women. Men's informal professional socialization via peers serves a resource for professional identity formation that is not available to women. This research provides the first conclusive evidence for the role of peers in professional identity formation, and how this peer influence mechanism is gendered.