Why Have Girls Gone to College? A Quantitative Examination of the Female College Enrollment Rate in the United States: 1955-1980

Hui He ()

No 200912, Working Papers from University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper documents a dramatic increase in the college enrollment rate of women from 1955 to 1980 and asks a quantitative question: to what extent can such change be accounted for by the change in the female cohort-specific college wage premium? I develop and calibrate an overlapping generations model with discrete schooling choice. I find that changes in the life-cycle earnings differential can explain the increase in female college enrollment rate very well. Young women's changing expectations of future employment opportunity also played an important role in driving their college attendance decision from the mid 1950s to the early 1970s.

Keywords: female college enrollment rate; college wage premium; life-cycle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 I21 E24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-edu, nep-his and nep-lab
Date: 2009-10-01
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