Marco Francesconi - Early Gender Gaps Among University Graduates

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Barbara Broadway

bhanel@unimelb.edu.au

  • Melbourne Institute Seminar

Title: Early Gender Gaps Among University Graduates

Abstract: In this paper, we use data from six cohorts of university graduates in Germany to assess the extent of gender gaps in college achievement and pay twelve to eighteen months after graduation. Men and women enter college in roughly equal numbers, but more women than men complete their degrees. Women enter college with slightly better high school marks, but women leave university with slightly lower grade levels. Immediately following university completion, male and female full-timers work a virtually identical number of hours per week, but men earn more than women across the entire pay distribution, with a gender gap in full-time monthly earnings of about 20 log points on average. Including a large set of controls reduces (but does not eliminate) the gap to 8-10 log points. The single most important proximate factor that explains this early gender gap is the field of study at university. There is considerable variation in the magnitude of the gender gap across the pay distribution, with larger gaps experienced by women at the bottom of the distribution. We also present results on the gaps by field of study.

Presenter: Marco Francesconi, University of Essex

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