Evolution Of Gender Differences In Post Secondary Human Capital Investments

Although women in the United States now complete more college degrees than men, the distribution of college majors among college graduates remains unequal, with women about two-thirds as likely as men to major in business or science. We develop and estimate a dynamic, overlapping generations model of human capital investments and labor supply. We allow for specific college major choices, instead of aggregating these choices to the education level. Results show that changes in skill prices, higher schooling costs, and gender-specific changes in home value were each important to the long-term trends.

Over the past 40 years, the level of human capital investments has changed substantially for men and women. Changes in the intensive margin of college major selection have been also been substantial, as the number of graduates in humanities, social science, and teaching has declined, and the number in science, engineering, and business has increased, especially for women. However, while women are now more likely to complete a college degree than men, the distribution of college majors among college graduates remains unequal with women about 2/3 as likely as men to major in a business or science field. In this paper, we develop and estimate a dynamic overlapping generations model of human capital investment and employment decisions to understand these long-term changes in human capital investments. Our departure from the previous literature is that we separately examine college major choices, rather than aggregating these choices to the education level (e.g. college or no college). We overcome the absence of field of study information in the CPS and Census data by combining these data with auxiliary data sources which characterize the changes in field of study composition across a large number of birth cohorts. Results from counterfactual experiments show that changes in skill prices, higher schooling costs, and a reduction in the value of home for women all played an important role in the educational attainment and college major composition trends. The following are appended: (1) NSCG Data Appendix; (2) Model Solution Appendix; and (3) Type Parameter Estimates.

How are human capital investments allocated between women and men? What are the returns to investments in women's nutrition, health care, education, mobility, and training? In thirteen wide-ranging and innovative empirical analyses, Investment in Women's Human Capital explores the nature of human capital distributions to women and their effect on outcomes within the family. Section I considers the experiences of high-income countries, examining the limitations of industrialization for the advancement of women; returns to secondary education for women; and state control of women's education and labor market productivity through the design of tax systems and the public subsidy of children. The remaining four sections investigate health, education, household structure and labor markets, and measurement issues in low-income countries, including the effect of technological change on transfers of wealth to and from children in India; women's and men's responses to the costs of medical care in Kenya; the effects of birth order and sex on educational attainment in Taiwan; wage returns to schooling in Indonesia and in Cote d'Ivoire; and the increasing prevalence of female-headed households and the correlates of gender differences in wages in Brazil.

To promote gender equity, expansion of the services sector should be encouraged. But this runs counter to the World Bank and IMF policy of encouraging the production of tradable goods (produced mainly in agriculture and less so in industry) to service debt. So direct government intervention is needed to promote investment in women's human capital.

Women, Men, and Human Capital Development in the Public Sector: Return on Investments analyzes the gap in wages paid to women and men who work for federal, state, and local governments; factors that contribute to disparities in pay; and organizational strategies for narrowing the gap. The gender gap in wages and status is closing. Changes in public policies and social and organizational changes have facilitated the development of human capital. However, many systemic, sociopsychological, and social barriers still limit women's career advancement in the public sector. American women earn approximately eighty cents for every dollar earned by men. Women hold less than 30 percent of executive positions in the private sector as well as federal, state, and local governments. This study analyzes factors, both legal and illegal, that lead to inequities in the pay and status of men and women. In recent turbulent economic times many organizations have eliminated jobs, facilitated early retirements, and lost employees frustrated by the lack of opportunities for advancement. Proactive organizations prepare for the unexpected by fully developing their human capital. Public policies have been less than effective in closing the wage gap, due in part to American culture and individual women's choices. Women are more likely than men to complete lower levels of education, enter the workforce later in life, and occupy lower-level positions. For these reasons the gender-based wage gap may never close, but, as the author points out, investments in human capital development may facilitate women's career advancement and narrow the gap. The author develops specific strategies for narrowing the wage gap and explores avenues of implementation. Book jacket.

The economics of education is a burgeoning area of study, employing increasingly sophisticated analytical tools to answer questions with high societal impact. Thus, the aim of this handbook is to provide readers with an up-to-date overview of the current state of the field of the economics of education and its main areas of research. This comprehensive handbook provides an authoritative overview of key theoretical and policy areas, covering topics like econometric methods for education economics, returns to education, competition in education provision, education and economic growth, and education and inequality. It reviews the current state of research from early childhood through postgraduate education as well as adult education and life-long learning. Offering a truly international perspective, the handbook benefits from a global group of contributors and attention to both developed and developing country contexts. The Routledge Handbook of the Economics of Education will be a valuable resource for advanced students, researchers, and policymakers across economics, education, and public policy.

Probing the ominous side of career advice to "follow your passion," this data-driven study explains how the passion principle fails us and perpetuates inequality by class, gender, and race; and it suggests how we can reconfigure our relationships to paid work. "Follow your passion" is a popular mantra for career decision-making in the United States. Passion-seeking seems like a promising path for avoiding the potential drudgery of a life of paid work, but this "passion principle"—seductive as it is—does not universally translate. The Trouble with Passion reveals the significant downside of the passion principle: the concept helps culturally legitimize and reproduce an exploited, overworked white-collar labor force and broadly serves to reinforce class, race, and gender segregation and inequality. Grounding her investigation in the paradoxical tensions between capitalism's demand for ideal workers and our cultural expectations for self-expression, sociologist Erin A. Cech draws on interviews that follow students from college into the workforce, surveys of US workers, and experimental data to explain why the passion principle is such an attractive, if deceptive, career decision-making mantra, particularly for the college educated. Passion-seeking presumes middle-class safety nets and springboards and penalizes first-generation and working-class young adults who seek passion without them. The ripple effects of this mantra undermine the promise of college as a tool for social and economic mobility. The passion principle also feeds into a culture of overwork, encouraging white-collar workers to tolerate precarious employment and gladly sacrifice time, money, and leisure for work they are passionate about. And potential employers covet, but won't compensate, passion among job applicants. This book asks, What does it take to center passion in career decisions? Who gets ahead and who gets left behind by passion-seeking? The Trouble with Passion calls for citizens, educators, college administrators, and industry leaders to reconsider how we think about good jobs and, by extension, good lives.

Why in 2015 are there still large gender differences in economic success? This volume consists of a set of state of the art research articles to answer this question. Focus areas include educational attainment, financial risk management, bargaining power, social mobility, and intergenerational transfers in the US and abroad.