Women’s Missing Mobility and the Gender Gap in Higher Education: Evidence from Germany’s University Expansion

Barbara Boelmann ()
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Barbara Boelmann: University of Cologne, Department of Economics and ECONtribute: Markets Public Policy, SSC, Universitätsstraße 22, 50937 Cologne, Germany

No 280, ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany

Abstract: This paper shows that the local availability of universities acted as a catalyst in the catch-up of women in higher education that has been documented for developed countries in the latter half of the 20th century. It uses the foundation of new univer- sities in the 1960s and 1970s in West German regions which previously did not have a university as a case study to understand how women’s mobility and education decisions interact. I first document women’s low regional mobility in post-war West Germany along with their low educational attainment. Second, I exploit that the university expansion exogenously brought universities to women’s doorsteps in a difference-in- differences (DiD) strategy. Comparing regions which experienced a university opening within 20 km to those where no university was opened, I show that women benefited more than men from a close-by university opening, closing the local gender gap in university education by about 72%. Third, I provide evidence that local universities partly increased university education through reduced costs, while part of the effect is due to higher expected returns, highlighting an important second channel through which universities promote education to local youths.

Keywords: college gender gap; geographic mobility; university expansion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I24 I28 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2024-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-gen, nep-his, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:280

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