The college gender gap reversal

L.S.M. Reijnders
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L.S.M. Reijnders: Groningen University

No 14006-EEF, Research Report from University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management)

Abstract: Why have women surpassed men in terms of educational attainment, even though they appear to have less incentives to go to college? The aim of this paper is to set up a basic theoretical life-cycle model in order to study the potential role of gender differences in the benefit of education in explaining the college gender gap reversal. Its main contribution is to show under which conditions the model can generate a reversal in college graduation rates, and to highlight the importance of the curvature of the utility function and the presence of subsistence constraints in this respect. In particular, I show that the labour market benefit of education for women can be higher than for men even if they have the same college wage premium if the elasticity of the marginal utility of wealth is greater than unity or there are fixed costs. Initially this might be dominated by a lower marriage market return, but a decrease in the probability of marriage can induce women to overtake men in educational attainment.

Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
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