Same Major, Same Economic Returns? College Selectivity, Family Income, and Earnings Inequality in Young Adulthood

• In Event: 4385 - Education in a Changing World

Abstract

Recent research demonstrates that fields of study are a persistent source of wage inequality, but surprisingly few studies have investigated factors that predict earnings within those fields. Drawing on theories of cumulative advantage, we posit that even if students graduate from college with functionally equivalent credentials, those in advantaged groups should have systematically higher earnings than those in less advantaged groups. In this article, we focus on two such dimensions of advantage—college selectivity and family income—to examine how young adult earnings are stratified among college graduates who majored in the same fields, using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS). We find that college selectivity predicts earnings within higher-paying majors, including business, STEM, and the social sciences. Family income, conversely, predicts earnings only in the major at the very bottom of the earnings distribution—the liberal arts and humanities. Further, we find that college selectivity is more salient for men’s earnings, while family income is more salient for women’s earnings. These findings suggest that fields of study are an important, yet incomplete, source of income inequality for college graduates, as earnings are further stratified along traditional predictors of status attainment.

Authors

• Natasha Quadlin, Ohio State University

• Emma D. Cohen, Indiana University