Abstract
Up to the late 1970's the Sex College Attainment Ratio (SCAR), or ratio of college attainment between men and women, was about 1.6. Assortative mating within education groups in marriages is strong enough in the United States to prevent accounting for the SCAR feature based on males' higher earnings. We document the puzzling nature of the SCAR, and we explore various theories to account for it. Our main finding is that if parents' well-being is affected by the number of grandchildren, gender differences in the steepness of the negative relation between educational attainment and number of children provides the best theory to understand the SCAR.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 965-998 |
| Number of pages | 34 |
| Journal | Review of Economic Dynamics |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2002 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Up to the late 1970’s the Sex College Attainment Ratio (SCAR), or ratio of college attainment between men and women, was about 1.6. Assortative mating within education groups in marriages is strong enough in the United States to prevent accounting for the SCAR feature based on males’ higher earnings. We document the puzzling nature of the SCAR, and we explore various theories to account for it. Our main finding is that if parents’ well-being is affected by the number of grandchildren, gender differences in the steepness of the negative relation between educational attainment and number of children provides the best theory to understand the SCAR. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: J12, J16, I20. 2002 Elsevier Science (USA) 1We most wholeheartedly thank Cristina Echevarria, our discussant in the conference that yielded this issue. We thank John Knowles and attendents to the 2001 SED conference in Stockholm. We also thank the hospitality of the Centro de Altísimos Estudios Ríos Pérez. Ríos-Rull thanks the National Science Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation, and the Spanish Ministry of Education; Sánchez-Marcos thanks the Gobierno Autónomo de la Comunidad de Madrid.