Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
女性流动性缺失与高等教育中的性别差距：来自德国大学扩招的证据
Women’s missing mobility and the gender gap in higher education: Evidence from Germany’s university expansion
摘要
This paper examines how local universities can help close the gender gap in higher education arising from women’s greater geographic mobility barriers. Using the opening of new universities in the 1960s and 1970s in West German regions which previously lacked universities and individual-level survey data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) for cohorts born 1944–1960, I examine how proximity to universities affects women’s educational decisions. First, I descriptively document women’s low regional mobility in post-war West Germany along with their low educational attainment. Second, in the main causal analysis, I exploit the university expansion in a difference-in-differences (DiD) strategy, comparing regions which experienced a university opening within commuting distance to those where no university was opened. Women benefited more than men from nearby openings, reducing the local gender gap in university education by about 74%. Local universities also affected women’s pre-tertiary education decisions, increasing high school graduation rates. Third, I provide descriptive evidence that universities increased participation not only by reducing moving costs but also through other channels, likely including greater visibility of and information about higher education. This paper highlights how public policy can reduce regional inequality and foster higher education participation, demonstrating that higher-education-stage interventions can influence pre-tertiary decisions and expand the policy toolkit beyond early childhood.
中文摘要
本文考察地方大学如何帮助缩小因女性面临更大地理流动障碍而产生的高等教育性别差距。利用20世纪60年代和70年代在西德此前没有大学的地区新设大学这一事件，以及国家教育追踪研究（NEPS）中1944—1960年出生队列的个体层面调查数据，我考察了靠近大学如何影响女性的教育决策。首先，我以描述性方式记录了战后西德女性较低的区域流动性及其较低的教育获得水平。其次，在主要因果分析中，我采用双重差分（DiD）策略利用大学扩张，比较在通勤距离内经历大学开设的地区与未开设大学的地区。女性从附近大学开设中的获益大于男性，使当地大学教育性别差距缩小约74%。地方大学还影响了女性的高等教育前教育决策，提高了高中毕业率。第三，我提供描述性证据表明，大学不仅通过降低迁移成本，还通过其他渠道提高了参与率，可能包括高等教育更高的可见度和更多相关信息。本文强调公共政策如何能够减少区域不平等并促进高等教育参与，表明高等教育阶段的干预可以影响高等教育前决策，并将政策工具包扩展到幼儿期之外。