IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/red/issued/v5y2002i4p965-998.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

College Attainment of Women

Author

Listed:
  • Jose-Victor Rios-Rull

    (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Virginia Sánchez-Marcos

    (Universidad de Cantabria)

Abstract

Up to the late 1970's the Sex College Attainment Ratio (SCAR), or ratio of college attainment between men and women, was about 1.6. Assortative mating within education groups in marriages is strong enough in the United States to prevent accounting for the SCAR feature based on males' higher earnings. We document the puzzling nature of the SCAR, and we explore various theories to account for it. Our main finding is that if parents' well-being is affected by the number of grandchildren, gender differences in the steepness of the negative relation between educational attainment and number of children provides the best theory to understand the SCAR. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Suggested Citation

  • Jose-Victor Rios-Rull & Virginia Sánchez-Marcos, 2002. "College Attainment of Women," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(4), pages 965-998, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:issued:v:5:y:2002:i:4:p:965-998
    DOI: 10.1006/redy.2002.0194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/redy.2002.0194
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full texts is restricted to ScienceDirect subscribers and ScienceDirect institutional members. See http://www.sciencedirect.com/ for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1006/redy.2002.0194?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Echevarria, Cristina & Merlo, Antonio, 1999. "Gender Differences in Education in a Dynamic Household Bargaining Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(2), pages 265-286, May.
    2. Claudia Goldin, 1992. "The Meaning of College in the Lives of American Women: The Past One-Hundred Years," NBER Working Papers 4099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Behrman, Jere R & Pollak, Robert A & Taubman, Paul, 1986. "Do Parents Favor Boys?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(1), pages 33-54, February.
    4. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2002. "Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 323-334, March.
    5. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    6. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe, 1995. "The Determinants of Children's Attainments: A Review of Methods and Findings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1829-1878, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Musab Kurnaz & Mehmet Soytas, 2019. "Early Childhood Investment and Income Taxation," 2019 Meeting Papers 290, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. George‐Levi Gayle & Limor Golan & Mehmet A. Soytas, 2018. "Estimation of dynastic life‐cycle discrete choice models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(3), pages 1195-1241, November.
    3. Hui He, 2011. "Why Have Girls Gone to College? A Quantitative Examination of the Female College Enrollment Rate in the United States: 1955-1980," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 12(1), pages 41-64, May.
    4. Ximena Peña, 2006. "Assortative Matching and the Education Gap," Working Papers gueconwpa~06-06-12, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    5. Georg-Levi Gayle & Limor Golan & Mehmet A. Soytas, "undated". "Estimating the Returns to Parental Time Investment in Children Using a Life Cycle Dynastic Model," GSIA Working Papers 2011-E18, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    6. Gayle, George-Levi & Golan, Limor & Soytas, Mehmet A., 2022. "What is the source of the intergenerational correlation in earnings?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 24-45.
    7. Yaz Terajima, 2006. "Education and Self-Employment: Changes in Earnings and Wealth Inequality," Staff Working Papers 06-40, Bank of Canada.
    8. Mehmet Soytas & Limor Golan & George-Levi Gayle, 2014. "What Accounts for the Racial Gap in Time Allocation and Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital?," 2014 Meeting Papers 83, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Dussaillant, Francisca, 2011. "The intergenerational transmission of maternal human capital and the gender gap in educational attainment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 226-229, June.
    10. Suqin Ge & Fang Yang, 2013. "Accounting For The Gender Gap In College Attainment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 478-499, January.
    11. Siahaan, Freddy & Lee, Daniel Y. & Kalist, David E., 2014. "Educational attainment of children of immigrants: Evidence from the national longitudinal survey of youth," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-8.
    12. Raquel Fernández & Joyce C. Wong, 2014. "Divorce Risk, Wages, and Working Wives: A Quantitative Life-Cycle Analysis of Female Labor Force Participation," NBER Working Papers 19869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Kurnaz, Musab & Soytas, Mehmet A., 2019. "Intergenerational Income Mobility and Income Taxation," GLO Discussion Paper Series 409, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paolo Buonanno & Dario Pozzoli, 2009. "Early Labour Market Returns to College Subject," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(4), pages 559-588, December.
    2. Elena Arias Ortiz & Catherine Dehon, 2008. "What are the Factors of Success at University? A Case Study in Belgium," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 54(2), pages 121-148.
    3. Grossman, Michael, 2006. "Education and Nonmarket Outcomes," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 577-633, Elsevier.
    4. Dussaillant, Francisca, 2011. "The intergenerational transmission of maternal human capital and the gender gap in educational attainment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 226-229, June.
    5. Amin, Vikesh & Lundborg, Petter & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2015. "The intergenerational transmission of schooling: Are mothers really less important than fathers?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 100-117.
    6. Erik Plug & Wim Vijverberg, 2003. "Schooling, Family Background, and Adoption: Is It Nature or Is It Nurture?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 611-641, June.
    7. Juan Cañada Vicinay, 2015. "Coyuntura económica y dotación social en la ecuación intergeneracional de Becker Tomes. Una estimación para España 2002-2013," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 10, in: Marta Rahona López & Jennifer Graves (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 10, edition 1, volume 10, chapter 40, pages 793-810, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    8. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Linda Datcher Loury, 2010. "College Schooling for Grandchildren and Contact with Grandparents," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0757, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    10. Richard Mussa, 2013. "Rural--urban differences in parental spending on children's primary education in Malawi," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 789-811, December.
    11. Checchi, Daniele & Fiorio, Carlo V. & Leonardi, Marco, 2013. "Intergenerational persistence of educational attainment in Italy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 229-232.
    12. Nicolas Fleury & Fabrice Gilles, 2015. "A meta-regression analysis on intergenerational transmission of education: publication bias and genuine empirical effect," TEPP Working Paper 2015-02, TEPP.
    13. Orazem, Peter F. & King, Elizabeth M., 2008. "Schooling in Developing Countries: The Roles of Supply, Demand and Government Policy," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 55, pages 3475-3559, Elsevier.
    14. Robert D. Plotnick, 2004. "Teenage Expectations and Desires about Family Formation in the United States," CASE Papers 090, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    15. Andrew W. Horowitz & Andre Portela Souza, 2004. "Inequality in Child Academic Achievement in Single Parent Households: Evidence from Brazil," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0425, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    16. Grant Johnston, 2004. "Healthy, wealthy and wise? A review of the wider benefits of education," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/04, New Zealand Treasury.
    17. Lars Lefgren & Frank McIntyre, 2006. "The Relationship between Women's Education and Marriage Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(4), pages 787-830, October.
    18. Ben-Halima, B. & Chusseau, N. & Hellier, J., 2014. "Skill premia and intergenerational education mobility: The French case," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 50-64.
    19. Ribar, David C., 2004. "What Do Social Scientists Know About the Benefits of Marriage? A Review of Quantitative Methodologies," IZA Discussion Papers 998, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Tansel, Aysit, 2011. "Intergenerational educational mobility in Turkey," MPRA Paper 68435, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:red:issued:v:5:y:2002:i:4:p:965-998. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.