IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedawp/88475.html

Decomposing Outcome Differences between HBCU and Non-HBCU Institutions

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper investigates differences in outcomes between historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) and traditional college and universities (non-HBCUs) using a standard Oaxaca/Blinder decomposition. This method decomposes differences in observed educational and labor market outcomes between HBCU and non-HBCU students into differences in characteristics (both student and institutional) and differences in how those characteristics translate into differential outcomes. Efforts to control for differences in unobservables between the two types of students are undertaken through inverse-probability weighting and propensity score matching methodologies. We find that differences in student characteristics make the largest contributions to each outcome difference. However, some hope in identifying policy levers comes in the form of how characteristics translate into outcomes. For example, whereas HBCUs appear to be doing a better job helping female graduates parlay their education into higher earnings, non-HBCUs are doing a better job in helping graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics translate their training into higher earnings. Patterns and importance of regressors are similar at different points of the distributions of outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Mels de Zeeuw & Sameera Fazili & Julie L. Hotchkiss, 2020. "Decomposing Outcome Differences between HBCU and Non-HBCU Institutions," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2020-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedawp:88475
    DOI: 10.29338/wp2020-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/working-papers-federal-reserve-bank-atlanta-8586/decomposing-outcome-differences-hbcu-non-hbcu-institutions-657196
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.29338/wp2020-10?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicole M. Fortin, 2008. "The Gender Wage Gap among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. de Zeeuw, Mels & Fazili, Sameera & Hotchkiss, Julie L., 2021. "Decomposing differences in Black student graduation rates between HBCU and non-HBCU Institutions: The devil is in the details," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huong Thu Le & Ha Trong Nguyen, 2018. "The evolution of the gender test score gap through seventh grade: new insights from Australia using unconditional quantile regression and decomposition," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-42, December.
    2. Anthony Strittmatter & Conny Wunsch, 2025. "Labor market sorting and the gender pay gap revisited," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(3), pages 1-41, September.
    3. Cowan, Benjamin & Schwab, Benjamin, 2016. "Employer-sponsored health insurance and the gender wage gap," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 103-114.
    4. Kaiser, Lutz C., 2014. "The Gender-Career Estimation Gap," IZA Discussion Papers 8185, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. Laurent Gobillon & Dominique Meurs & Sébastien Y. Roux, 2017. "Differences in positions along a hierarchy: Counterfactuals based on an assignment," Working Papers halshs-01513012, HAL.
    6. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    7. Josep Amer-Mestre and Agnès Charpin, 2022. "Gender Differences in Early Occupational Choices: Evidence from Medical Specialty Selection," Economics Working Papers EUI ECO 2022/01, European University Institute.
    8. John F. Helliwell & Lara B. Aknin & Hugh Shiplett & Haifang Huang & Shun Wang, 2017. "Social Capital and Prosocial Behaviour as Sources of Well-Being," NBER Working Papers 23761, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Adam Pilny, 2017. "Explaining Differentials in Subsidy Levels Among Hospital Ownership Types in Germany," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 566-581, May.
    10. Dora Gicheva, 2020. "Occupational Social Value and Returns to Long Hours," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(347), pages 682-712, July.
    11. Margarita Kiryushina & Victor Rudakov, 2021. "The Gender Gap in Early-Career Wages of Universities' and Vocational Education Institutes' Graduates," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 2, pages 172-198.
    12. Sloczynski, Tymon, 2013. "Population Average Gender Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 7315, IZA Network @ LISER.
    13. Töpfer, Marina & Castagnetti, Carolina & Rosti, Luisa, 2016. "Discriminate me - if you can! The Disappearance of the Gender Pay Gap among Public-Contest Selected Employees," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145905, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Islam, Asif M. & Amin, Mohammad, 2023. "The gender labor productivity gap across informal firms," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    15. Claudio Lucifora & Daria Vigani, 2022. "What if your boss is a woman? Evidence on gender discrimination at the workplace," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 389-417, June.
    16. Himmler, Oliver & Koenig, Tobias, 2012. "Self-Evaluations and Performance: Evidence from Adolescence," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-507, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    17. Alfonso Arellano & Noelia Cámara & David Tuesta, 2018. "Explaining the Gender Gap in Financial Literacy: The Role of Non†Cognitive Skills," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 47(2-3), pages 495-518, July.
    18. Chen, Yiu Por (Vincent) & Zhang, Yuan, 2018. "A decomposition method on employment and wage discrimination and its application in urban China (2002–2013)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 1-12.
    19. Alexandre Mas, 2017. "Does Transparency Lead to Pay Compression?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(5), pages 1683-1721.
    20. Bahram Sanginabadi, 2020. "Does Schooling Causally Impact Non-Cognitive Skills? Evidence from Elimination of Social Security Student Benefits," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-27, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedawp:88475. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rob Sarwark (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbatus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.