Full Citation
Title: International Trade and Gender Gaps in College Enrollment
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2022
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI: 10.17016/2380-7172.3117
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PMCID:
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Abstract: A large body of work suggests that trade affects workers unevenly. By shifting economic activity across occupations, industries, or regions, freer trade can generate gains for some workers and losses for others. For instance, in light of the increase in U.S. imports from China starting in the 1990s, Autor, Dorn and Hanson (2013) provide evidence that workers' labor market outcomes deteriorated more in regions exposed to tougher import competition from China. Relatedly, the recent work by Ferriere, Navarro and Reyes-Heroles (2021) shows that college enrollment by young individuals increased more in these exposed regions.1 In particular, they show that labor markets outcomes deteriorated more for workers with lower education levels, thus affecting incentives for young individuals to enroll into college. In this note, we provide evidence that trade openness has led to a greater increase in college enrollment by women than by men. We extend the work of Ferriere, Navarro and Reyes-Heroles (2021) by analyzing the gender-specific effects of import competition on labor market outcomes and college enrollment decisions. We first show that the adverse effect of import competition is strongest on the labor market outcomes of women without a college education. That is, after the increase in trade, the college premium increases more for women than for men. Second, we show that young women enrolled more into college than men in response to increased imports. Hence, college enrollment responded to the trade-induced increase in college premium.2 Section 2 of this note discusses our empirical strategy. Section 3 discusses the effects on labor market outcomes by gender and education levels, while Section 4 does the same for college enrollment. Section 5 concludes.
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Authors: Conlisk, Sarah; Navarro, Gaston; Penn, Maddie; Reyes-Heroles, Ricardo
Publisher: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education, Gender
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