Unpopular With the Opposite Sex in High School? A New Study Says You Probably Did Better in This Department

Though students in high school might lament seeming unpopular with the opposite sex, a new study suggests these same students might be rejoicing in higher GPAs.

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The study by Andrew Hill, an economics professor at the University of South Carolina, published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, is the first to show a causal relationship between the gender composition of one's friend group and academic performance.

Overall, Hill wrote in the study he found that more friends of the opposite gender reduced academic achievement. More specifically, if one's friend group was 70 percent composed of the opposite gender, a student had a GPA 0.4 lower, compared to those who had only 30 percent of the opposite sex counted among their friends.

For every 10 percent more friends of the opposite sex a student had, their GPA was subsequently lower by a percentage point. KPIX-TV pointed out that this might seem small, but the difference between a 3.0 GPA and a 2.9 GPA is making the admission requirement to apply to the University of California.

Hill suggested that friendships with the opposite sex in school increased the frequency having "difficulties getting along with the teacher and difficulties paying attention in class." He also wrote that having more friends of the opposite sex increased the likelihood of a romantic relationship, which he said "may have adverse effects on achievement."

"This paper provides new evidence on the impact of the gender composition of school friends: an increase in the share of opposite gender school friends causes a reduction in high school academic achievement," he wrote. "Part of this effect seems to operate through changes in classroom behavior such as increased troubles getting along with the teacher and paying attention in class. Opposite gender school friends also increase the probability of being in a romantic relationship, which may be another mechanism for the negative effect on GPA given students in relationships may both substitute time away from studying and be distracted in the classroom."

Because, as Hill put it according to the website Priceonomics, "lots of things cause people to become friends, so you cannot just compare the GPA of students with 70 percent opposite gender friends and 30 percent opposite gender friends and argue that this difference is caused by the different share of opposite gender friends. Many other factors may also differ between those individuals."

So he detailed the methodology and calculations he went through to establish a causal argument between friends of the opposite gender and their grades.

Hill especially took into account the students who lived near each other in a neighborhood and how that could influence the gender composition of their friend base, citing previous research that found people are more likely to be friends with others who live close by.

Hill used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a study of students between grades 7 and 12 conducted during 1995-95 from a sampling of schools that were considered representative of the U.S.

Hill said he found it  interesting that his results "show that an individual’s share of opposite gender friends has no clear effect on smoking and drinking, which are intended to reflect nonschool socializing and risk-taking. There is no evidence that opposite gender friends encourage potentially detrimental 'cool' behavior.

Considering the ongoing debate about the effect single-sex or mixed education, Hill suggested that in light of his findings, making at least classrooms single-sex could be a low-cost way to eliminate issues that appear more often when opposite gender friends are present.

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