College Majors, Wage Returns, and the Gender Wage Gap: Changes from 2003 to 2021

• In Event: 30451 - Inequality

Abstract

Social scientists have long been concerned with the slowing convergence of the gender wage gap in the United States since the 1990s, a puzzle known as the "stalled gender revolution." Prior research has examined the extent to which this gap can be explained by gender disparities in fields of study — or majors. However, these cross-sectional analyses fail to explain the slowdown in convergence, as they do not explicitly account for changes over time. This paper investigates how changes in major choices among men and women, along with changes in gender-specific wage returns to different majors, have shaped trends in the gender wage gap. Using a detailed decomposition method with data from the National Survey of College Graduates (2003–2021), I find that the disproportionate decline in women’s representation among education degree recipients has substantially narrowed the gender wage gap. Yet, two key forces have impeded further convergence. First, men have increasingly entered electrical engineering and computer science at a higher rate. Second, women have been more affected by declining wage returns to education degrees due to their continued overrepresentation in the field. Together, this article demonstrates that changing dynamics in fields of study remain a critical driver of gender inequality in the labor market.

Author

• Jen-Chen Chao, Harvard University