Gender gap developments in tertiary education

: a cross-country time-series analysis on european level

Abstract

During recent decades, a reversal of the gender gap in tertiary enrollment and a
subsequent growing gap in favor of women could be observed in most industrialized countries. This dissertation shows developments of the female-male gender gap in tertiary educational enrollment and analyzes factors behind the widening female-male gap with time-series data on European level. The analysis is based on a model of educational investment, which suggests that gender differences in benefits and costs of tertiary education help to explain gender gaps in tertiary educational investment. Using a first difference model to ensure stationarity, we find that only gender differences in cognitive and non-cognitive skills, as measured by PISA scores in levels and standard deviations, significantly correlate with the gender gap in tertiary educational enrollment. We further find significant differences across time and country subgroup. Whether levels or the dispersion of cognitive and non-cognitive skills have explanatory power varies with country subregions and with the type of the PISA score used (Math or Reading).

Date of Award	15 May 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Hugo Reis (Supervisor) & Miguel Gouveia (Co-Supervisor)