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Title: Peer to Peer: Lifetime Learning and the Evolution of the Gender Literacy Gap

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2005

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Abstract: After emancipation, Southern blacks had extremely low levels of literacy due to strict restrictions on the education of slaves. While many economists have detailed the racial gap in educational outcomes after emancipation, few have examined the gender differences in the educational outcomes of blacks. While blacks quickly pursued neweducational opportunities, young black women especially took advantage. By 1870 the literacy rates of black females under the age of twenty were significantly higher than theirmale cohorts. However, by 1880 the situation reversed- as males of this birth cohort had rates of literacy over six percentage points higher than females the same age. Thisreversal in the gender literacy gap was a result of a sharp increase in literacy rates of males in these birth cohorts. While males continued to attain literacy throughout theirlifetime, females did not experience such a rapid rise and subsequently fell behind. Using a difference in differences framework I find mixed evidence that the reversal of thegender gap is due to literacy attainment through labor market interactions.

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Authors: Troost, William

Publisher: The University of British Columbia

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Race and Ethnicity

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