Persistent and Gender-Unequal Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Student Outcomes in Italy

Abstract

The learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ outcomes is likely to have lasting effects on which evidence is lacking. Using a differencein- differences design through a triple difference estimator, we identify the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on Italian students’ test scores in the two years following the COVID-19 outbreak. Our findings indicate a persistently negative effect on mathematics and reading scores for grade 5 and grade 8  students in 2021–22, two years after the pandemic began, despite a statistically significant recovery compared to the previous school year. Our analysis highlights the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on girls, leading to a decrease in their academic performance and an intensification of gender-based inequalities (with the exception of grade 8 reading). Our results also show that the pandemic had a greater adverse impact on the academic achievement of students who experienced more prolonged classroom closures.