Why do women outnumber men in college enrollment? (2023)

When college enrollment numbers came in that fall, we learned that for every man there are now almost two women attending college. These numbers indicate the highest recorded gender disparity in favor of women observed in US college enrollment. The media discussion that followed (for example, see thisWSJ-Articles) has been largely sympathetic to the young males and has focused on identifying possible causes of such severe gender imbalance. Questions have been raised: Are girls being given preferential treatment in high school and are boys increasingly slipping through the cracks? Has the Recent SAT Scoring Change Disproportionately Favored Female Test Takers? Are college admissions to blame?

In this blog post, we argue against these explanations by showing that the gender gap in college attendance is unlikely to reflect any sort of failure on the part of educators or college admissions officials. A more likely explanation is that labor markets reward women with relatively higher financial returns from college enrollment.

Women in college are superior to men

Let's start with the next figure, which shows how the relative undergraduate enrollment of women to men (the gender gap in enrollment) at two-year (blue line) and four-year (orange line) institutions has evolved over time.

In 1970, men outnumbered women in college, accounting for 59% of undergraduate enrollments at two-year institutions and 57% at four-year institutions. This was partly due to the high number of men enlisting to avoid conscription during the Vietnam War. In fact, the gender enrollment gap narrowed significantly once the draft ended in 1973. By 1980, gender was perfectly balanced in four-year colleges, and women outnumbered two-year schools, accounting for 55% of enrollment in those institutions.

Since 1980, the female-to-male ratio in two-year college enrollments continued to increase until it reached about 1.4 in 1995, at which point it stabilized. However, the relative female-to-male ratio in four-year college enrollments increased steadily during this period, reaching 1.3 in the fall of 2019.

All of this means that the severe gender imbalance demonstrated in recent media discussions is simply a continuation of an ongoing historical trend and that no recent policy changes (e.g. reforms in SAT scoring) explain the existence of a historical trend be able.

academic performance

A possible reason that might explain this trend is a related one in the relative academic performance of girls versus boys at the high school level. If girls consistently outperform boys in high school, whatever the reasons, it would make sense that they would progressively outperform boys in school (although this would not imply a causal influence). If that were the case, we would look at these underlying reasons.

However, there does not seem to be a systematic trend in the relative performance of boys and girls in secondary education. The next figure shows the relative SAT scores of women to men in reading and mathematics.

Until the 2016 changes to the SAT, relative performance in reading varied by 0.99 and in math by 0.93, suggesting that boys perform slightly better on these tests. There is a slight upward trend in relative math scores, but the change is very small - from 0.93 for the 1970 class to 0.94 for the 2016 class. Changes in relative preparation for the 2016 seems unlikely College explain why many more women are enrolling in college today. If anything, girls still lag behind boys in SAT scores.

However, in March 2016, the College Board redesigned the SAT, introducing changes to the structure and timing of the various sections, the types of questions, and the scoring rules. From the second figure, it is clear that girls' relative performance on the SAT in Class 2017 has skyrocketed, although they remain slightly behind boys in their overall score. One possible reason girls have benefited more from this change is that the College Board has attempted to make the SAT more consistent with the high school curriculum, thereby rewarding successful study habits developed in school.

This increase in women's relative performance on the SAT in 2017 (the second panel) coincided with the increase in their relative enrollment (the first panel), so some causal influence is possible in this case. It would work by helping women be more competitive in the college admissions process. And, of course, better access to higher quality schools would increase enrollment.

Relatively higher returns for college education

Still, the upward trend in women's relative enrollment existed before the 2017 SAT reform, and it's important to understand the forces behind it. We argue that women make greater financial gains by entering college—this is the most likely explanation for why they now have more men than men in college.

To show that women enjoy higher financial returns from college, we examine the variations in real hourly wages among 30- to 40-year-old full-time workers in the 2015 census data. The results of the regression estimates are shown in the table below.The estimates are all statistically highly significant; We omit standard errors for the sake of simplicity.

The first column contains the statistical results on educational group indicators - the university degree represents the starting group. It shows that male workers with a high school degree made an average of about $12 an hour (2,478 in logs) in 2015. Male workers with an associate degree earned 22% more, and those with at least a bachelor's degree earned 62% more.

The second column shows how these estimates differ for female workers. Women with only a high school diploma earned about 24% less per hour than men in the same educational group. Compared to men, women sawan additional5.3% earn an associate's or bachelor's degree; That means women with an associate degree earned 28% more compared to women with only a high school degree, while women with a bachelor's degree earned 68% more.Granted, these numbers should not be interpreted literally as "returns" to a degree, since workers in different educational groups differ in their innate characteristics, and these differences are partly responsible for differences in wages.

What these numbers show is that more education is indeed an important way to close the gender pay gap. Entry into higher education – whether it is an AS or a BS – helps women gain access to careers where they have a comparative advantage (e.g. clerical work). Men, on the other hand, have better access to lucrative jobs that do not require a university degree (e.g. construction jobs). This seems the most reasonable explanation for why women outnumber them in college.

Why wasn't this the case in the late 1960s? Why did the number of female relatives gradually increase over time? This is because there used to be fewer married women working in the market, so the investment aspect of the college wasn't as relevant in the 1960s. As women increased their labor force participation over time, the financial returns from college investments became more important, and more women chose college to access more lucrative careers.

More generally, there is no reason to expect a perfect gender ratio at university. Women and men face different incentives and should be expected to make different choices.

Notes and references

1. The estimates are all statistically highly significant; We omit standard errors for the sake of simplicity.
2. Granted, these numbers should not be interpreted literally as "returns" to a degree, since workers in different educational groups differ in their innate characteristics, and these differences are partly responsible for differences in wages.

About the authors