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Educational attainment and the gender wage gap: evidence from the 1986 and 1991 Canadian censuses
ARTICLE

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Economics of Education Review Volume 20, Number 2 ISSN 0272-7757 Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

Abstract

The paper takes advantage of the detailed information on educational attainment and field of study provided in the Canadian Census to examine gender differences in educational attainment and the effect of these differences on the gender earnings gap for full-time, full-year workers in Canada. Gender differences in field of study of post-secondary graduates are found to be an important contributor to the gap. This is an important finding given the lack of such data in most studies of the gender gap. Gender differences in educational attainment account for virtually none of the gender gap in earnings in 1985 and 1990 — a result also found in earlier studies using less detailed attainment data. However, projections suggest that although gender differences in attainment explain little of the gap in these years, the continuing improvement in women's educational attainment relative to men has helped shrink the gap in the past and will likely continue to do so.

Citation

Christie, P. & Shannon, M. Educational attainment and the gender wage gap: evidence from the 1986 and 1991 Canadian censuses. Economics of Education Review, 20(2), 165-180. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved November 30, 2023 from .

This record was imported from Economics of Education Review on March 1, 2019. Economics of Education Review is a publication of Elsevier.

Full text is availabe on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7757(99)00058-8

Keywords

References

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