Women from Elite Colleges Earn More Because They Work More ...
The researchers find that school selectivity, as measured by the average SAT scores of the school's admitted students, is correlated with post-college earnings for some groups, even after controlling for student characteristics. Attending a more selective institution increases earnings by 7.1 percent on average. The effect is much larger for women (13.9 percent) than for men (1.1 percent). The researchers cannot reject the possibility that there is no effect for men.
The effect of a more-selective school on women's subsequent earnings is driven largely by an increase in labor force participation, not in earnings conditional on working. All else equal, a woman who attends a school with a 100-point higher average SAT score is 2.8 percent more likely to work. They find no statistically significant effect for men. In addition, attending a more selective school increases the likelihood of a woman obtaining an advanced degree by 9.4 percent. There is no comparable effect for men.
College selectivity is also associated with family outcomes. Married women with children are the group for whom the differential between those who attended elite schools and other schools is largest.
Attending a more-selective institution is associated with a 3.9 percentage point lower marriage rate for women, but does not appear to matter for men. Spouses of women who attend more selective schools are 8 percentage points more likely to have an advanced degree, but their earnings and labor market participation rates are comparable to the spouses of women who attend less selective colleges. The researchers do not find any effects of college selectivity on the probability of having children for either men or women.
