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Accounting For The Gender Gap In College Attainment

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  • SUQIN GE
  • FANG YANG

Abstract

One striking phenomenon in the U.S. labor market is the reversal of the gender gap in college attainment. Females have outnumbered males in college attainment since 1987. We develop a discrete choice model of college entry decisions to study the effects of changes in relative earnings, changes in parental education, and changes in the marriage market on time series observations of college attainment by gender. We find that the increase in the relative earnings between college and high school individuals and the increasing parental education have important effects on the increase in college attainment for both genders but cannot explain the reversal of the gender gap. Declining marriage rates decrease returns to college for females less than those for males, and thus is crucial in explaining the reversal of the gender gap in college attainment.
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Suggested Citation

  • Suqin Ge & Fang Yang, 2013. "Accounting For The Gender Gap In College Attainment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 478-499, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:51:y:2013:i:1:p:478-499
    DOI: j.1465-7295.2010.00338.x
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2010.00338.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Alena Bičáková & Štěpán Jurajda, 2017. "Gender composition of college graduates by field of study and early fertility," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 1323-1343, December.
    2. Ghaffarzadegan, Navid & Xue, Yi & Larson, Richard C., 2017. "Work-education mismatch: An endogenous theory of professionalization," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(3), pages 1085-1097.
    3. Zvi Eckstein & Michael P. Keane & Osnat Lifshitz, 2023. "What Explains the Growing Gender Education Gap? The Effects of Parental Background, the Labor Market and the Marriage Market on College Attainment," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 082, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. John Bailey Jones & Minhee Kim & Byoung G. Park, 2020. "The Wage Penalty for Married Women of Career Interruptions: Evidence from the 1970s and the 1990s," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(4), pages 783-807, August.
    5. Hui He, 2011. "Why Have Girls Gone to College? A Quantitative Examination of the Female College Enrollment Rate in the United States: 1955-1980," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 12(1), pages 41-64, May.
    6. Odinah L. Cuartero & Dulcemina O. Leva, 2014. "Mining Companies Social Development and Management Program (SDMP) and Its Impact to the Multi-Sector of Carcanmadcarlan," International Journal of Asian Social Science, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 4(10), pages 1077-1091, October.
    7. Alena Bicakova & Stepan Jurajda, 2014. "The Quiet Revolution and the Family: Gender Composition of Tertiary Education and Early Fertility Patterns," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp504, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    8. Serge Atherwood & Gabriela Sánchez-Soto, 2023. "Does Social Class Matter Equally for the Timely Transition Into and Out of College? Evidence from the NLSY97," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 64(1), pages 95-128, February.
    9. John Bailey Jones & Fang Yang, 2016. "Skill-Biased Technical Change and the Cost of Higher Education," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 621-662.
    10. Stephen Sunday OJO & Martina Alexander POJWAN, 2021. "Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality in Urban Areas: New Threats and Potentials in Nigeria," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 5(6), pages 724-728, June.
    11. Ge, Suqin & Zhou, Yu, 2020. "Robots, computers, and the gender wage gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 194-222.

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