Higher Career Cost Can Actually Explain Why More Women Than Men Go to College
20 Pages
Posted: 27 Apr 2016
Last revised: 27 Jul 2017
Michigan State University
Date Written: July 20, 2017
Abstract
This paper shows how gender-differential career cost can explain why in most of the developed countries women go to college at a higher rate than men but earn less on average. I assume men and women make costly college and career investments but women face an extra cost for career investment because such investment occurs during their fertile period. The extra career cost discourages women from investing in career but surprisingly encourages more women than men to go to college through a general-equilibrium marriage-market channel that results in an endogenously higher college marriage premium for women.
Keywords: college gender gap, gender pay gap, college marriage premium
JEL Classification: C78, D1, I2
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
Zhang, Hanzhe, Higher Career Cost Can Actually Explain Why More Women Than Men Go to College (July 20, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2770854 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2770854
