The Rise of Female Labor Market Opportunities and Self-Selection Into Teaching and Nursing

• In Event: Exploring Strategies to Address Needs in the Teaching Workforce

Abstract

Economists have argued that the expansion of labor market opportunities for women in the mid-twentieth century negatively affected the quality of the teaching workforce (Bacolod, 2007). We probe these conclusions by documenting comparable labor market trends for nurses, another historically female-dominated occupation. We find that nurses did not realize comparable declines in quality throughout the twentieth century, calling into question the assumption that outside opportunities for women can explain changes in women’s selection into teaching. We also extend previous analyses to more recent years of data and find stark increases in teacher quality in more recent cohorts, again challenging the common assumption that the quality of teachers is declining.

Authors

• Shirin Abdul Hashim, Harvard University

• Mary Elizabeth Laski, Harvard University