Career Choices and the Evolution of the College Gender Gap

Martín Rossi and Christian Ruzzier

No 120, Working Papers from Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia

Abstract: We propose a complementary explanation for the evolution of the college gender gap that emphasizes the raising opportunity cost of pursuing a college degree for men, due to the increase in the rewards to becoming a superstar in men-dominated occupations, like professional sports. We support our explanation with causal evidence from a natural experiment in European soccer markets that provides exogenous variation in male earnings in a superstar path. Consistent with our story, we find a significant positive effect of an increase in male superstar earnings on the ratio of female to male tertiary enrollment in college education.

Keywords: gender gap; superstars; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2015-03, Revised 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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https://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc120.pdf First version, 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Career Choices and the Evolution of the College Gender Gap (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sad:wpaper:120

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