College major and earnings disparities by gender and sexual orientation

• In Event: 30620 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Gender Inequality

Abstract

Increasing attention has been devoted to the study of inequalities in educational attainment and achievement for sexual- and gender-minority individuals. However, there is much less research on whether gender and sexuality are associated with college major choice, despite its strong association with disparities in labor market outcomes. Using restricted-access data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond study, I compile evidence of the differences in the distribution of fields of study among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and heterosexual cisgender Americans. I also estimate Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of the earnings differences by sexuality to understand how differences in the distribution across college majors and heterogeneous returns to college major by sexuality are related to labor market inequalities. Preliminary analyses suggest that sexual-minority college graduates are overrepresented in gender-atypical majors and majors associated with self-expression or a social orientation. Gay men are overrepresented in low-return majors, but they experience higher returns to female-dominated college majors compared to heterosexual men. There is some evidence that lesbian women are overrepresented in low-return majors, but they enjoy higher returns to some college majors where they are underrepresented. Overall, these results support the need for further investigation into the shape of inequalities in higher education and across the life course by gender and sexuality.

Author

• Elia Boschetti, University of Wisconsin-Madison