DC Accepted Papers Paper:
Joining the Men's Club: The Returns to Pursuing High-Earnings, Male-Dominated Fields for Women
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
The low participation of women in high-earnings fields such as technology and engineering (TE) is believed to contribute to the gender wage gap. This paper investigates the labor market returns to pursuing majors in TE for men and women using data from Chile. We link administrative records on postsecondary application and enrollment to labor earnings and fertility data, and exploit discontinuities in admission generated by Chile’s centralized system of admission to higher education. We find that enrollment in TE as opposed to humanities, arts or social science (HASS) increases men’s earnings and employment by 74% and 29%, but does not increase earnings or employment for women. The absence of returns for women seems to be the consequence of them failing to fully integrate into the men’s club: enrollment in TE increases the probability of employment at high-paying and male-dominated industries for men, but not for women. Finally, we show that enrollment into TE does not affect women’s fertility or their partners’ test scores and earnings.
