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Title: The Opportunity Cost of a College Education: How Shocks to Local Labor Demand Affect Enrollment and the Gender Gap

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2014

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Abstract: This study explores the role of opportunity cost in the decision to attend college and its implications for the gap in enrollment between women and men. I provide new causal evidence that enrollment goes up in response to negative local labor demand shocks and down in response to positive ones. I then use variation in the opportunity cost of attending college to explore whether differences in labor market opportunities contribute to the enrollment gender gap. First, I find evidence that men are more sensitive to local labor demand shocks, suggesting that labor demand has gender-specific components. To isolate these components, I construct measures of gender-specific demand by classifying occupations by gender and education level. I find that there is a high degree of gender segregation by occupation at all education levels, but that most male jobs are low education, while female jobs are distributed more evenly across education levels. I present evidence that demand shocks to low education male jobs predict the gender gap and that the gap would shrink by 20 percent if low education male jobs disappeared.

Url: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.684.7775&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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Authors: Walstrum, Thomas

Publisher: University of Illinois at Chicago

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Education, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

Countries: United States