Marriage, Intergenerational Schooling Effect, and Gender Gap in College Attainment

Abstract

Abstract One striking phenomenon in the U.S. labor market is the reversal of the gender gap in college attainment. Females have outnumbered males in college attainment since 1987. We develop a discrete choice model of college decision to study the effects of changes in relative earnings, changes in parental education, and changes in the marriage market on time series observations of college attainment by gender. We find that the increases of parental education and relative earnings between college and high school persons have important effects on the increase in college attainment for both genders, while the decrease of marriage rates is crucial in explaining the reversal of gender gap in college attainment