%0 Report
        %A Loviglio, Annalisa
%A Rattini, Veronica
%A Stronati, Federico
        %T Gender Differences in High-Stakes Performance Among Early Adolescents: Evidence from a Middle-School Exit Exam Reform
        %D 2026
        %8 2026 Oct
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 19017
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp19017
        %X We study whether high-stakes testing affects the performance of female and male students differently in early adolescence. Existing evidence from high-school, university, and admission settings suggests that female students often perform relatively worse when stakes are high, but evidence from earlier stages of the educational career remains limited. We exploit a 2017 reform of Italy's lower-secondary exit exam that removed the score on a nationwide standardized test from the calculation of the final grade while preserving mandatory participation. Using administrative data covering the full population of students and a gender-by-reform difference-in-differences specification, we compare the female -male performance gap across the high- and low-stakes regimes. Girls outperform boys in both regimes, and their relative advantage is modestly larger, by about 0.03-0.05 standard deviations, when the test carries direct grade consequences.
        %K high-stakes testing
%K gender gaps
%K standardized exams
%K adolescence