Early Career Interest Development in Accounting: The Effect of Race after Controlling Math Performance and Gender

Abstract

The under-representation of African Americans in the field of accounting in the United States remains to be a serious concern. In order to tackle the issue of diversity shortage in the accounting field, this study investigates whether there are racial differences in the development of accounting career interests in the early stages of life, and whether the early career development is time-invariant. By using the propensity scores approach and controlling for the potential influence of gender and math performance, we find that African-American students have greater accounting career interests than Caucasian students, and accounting career interest development of adolescents changes between 8th and 10th grades. The results of this study have important implications to guide the practice and research of school career counselors, educators and parents.