Author(s)
Hanzhe Zhang

This paper shows how women’s relatively higher career cost can explain why in most of the developed countries women go to college at a higher rate than men and earn less on average. I assume men and women make costly college and career investments but women face an extra cost for career investment because such investment occurs during their fertile period. The extra career cost discourages women from investing in career but surprisingly encourages more women than men to go to college through a general-equilibrium marriage-market channel that results in an endogenously higher college marriage premium for women.

JEL Codes
C78: Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
D10: Household Behavior: General
I20: Education and Research Institutions: General
Keywords
gender-differential career cost
college gender gap
college marriage premium