Události

Prof. Scott A. Imberman

Michigan State University, United States

Authors: Scott A. Imberman, Michael F. Lovenheim, Patrick Massey, Kevin Stange, Rodney J. Andrews

Abstract: Gender and racial/ethnic gaps in labor market earnings remain large, even among workers with similar educational attainment. Differences by gender and race in the distribution of college majors and in their returns are potentially important contributors to these gaps. In this paper, we use administrative data from the universe of Texas public high school graduates followed through college and up to 20 years in the labor market to assess gender and racial differences in college major choices and the consequences of these choices. While there are sizable cross-group differences in college major choices, with women, Black, and Hispanic students being underrepresented in high-earnings fields such as business & economics, IT, and engineering, we show that these groups also experience much lower returns to these majors (relative to own-group earnings in liberal arts). Differences in major-specific returns are more important than differences in the distribution of college majors for explaining earnings gaps, explaining 20%, 57%, and 51% of the gender, White-Black, and White-Hispanic earnings differences among four-year college students, respectively. The work shines light on the role that college major choice – and returns by gender and race – contributes to inequality.