Great Depression, WWII and the College Gender Gap

This paper examines the short- and long-run effects of the Great Depression on college attainment by gender in the United States for cohorts born 1906–1920. Using state-level variation in Depression severity, we find that harsher conditions in the early 1930s are associated with small increases in educational attainment by 1940, with similar responses for men and women. Following these cohorts to 1960, more severe Depression exposure is linked to modest increases in men’s college attainment at the one- and two-year margins, with little effect on four-year completion. Women’s responses are more heterogeneous and generally imprecisely estimated. We further show that these patterns are stronger in areas with greater WWII mobilization: male attainment rises more strongly in highly mobilized states, while women’s responses remain limited and mixed. Overall, the results suggest that early-life exposure to the Depression, combined with wartime opportunities, may have contributed to modest gender differences in college attainment in the mid-twentieth century.