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Title: The Effects of Education on the Gender Pay Gap in the US in 2018

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2019

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Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of higher education on the gender pay gap in the US in 2018. It is hypothesized that a degree provides a signal that a woman is committed to a career, due to the high costs incurred whilst investing in higher education, which in turn removes some of the bias against females in the workplace. This is proven by comparing the returns to education between females and males and between graduates and non-graduates in order to show that there are benefits in terms of income from obtaining a degree other than through productivity. Findings show that an additional year of education is correlated with a 11.38% increase in annual income, and the benefits women gain from signalling as a graduate equate to 1.1 percentage points. However, these results also show that despite women having a larger increase in the returns to education between graduates and non-graduates, the gender pay gap is higher for those with a degree than those of a lower education level, which suggests that characteristics of graduates and the nature of graduate jobs is in fact fuelling the gender pay gap as opposed to the education itself.

User Submitted?: Yes

Authors: Witheford, K

Institution: University of Leicester

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Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Education, Gender

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