Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Women's Missing Mobility and the Gender Gap in Higher Education: Evidence from Germany's University Expansion
Author-Name: Barbara Boelmann
Author-Email: barbara.boelmann@uni-koeln.de
Classification-JEL: I23, I24, I28, J16
Keywords: college gender gap, geographic mobility, university expansion

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 universities
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-indifferences
(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.

Note: 
Length: 66
Creation-Date: 2024-03
Revision-Date:
File-URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp518
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:CRCTR224_2024_518