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Prof. Ling Zhong
Assistant Professor of Economics
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business

This paper studies the gender gap among full time college educated workers born
between 1931 and 1984, focusing on the differential contribution of undergraduate field,
graduate degree attainment and field, and field specific returns. Using rich data from
the National Survey of College Graduates and other sources on college graduates and
their labor market outcomes, we decompose trends in the gender earnings gap across
birth cohorts into (a) trends in a cohort and gender specific component that affects all
college graduates the same, (b) trends in the gender gap in earnings due to differences
in the relative return for a given undergraduate and graduate degree field combination,
and (c) trends in gender differences in the composition of undergraduate and graduate
degrees. We start by decomposing the earnings gap across cohorts, and then distinguish
effects that operate through occupation and effects that operate within occupations.
We also decompose the effect of education into changes in the gender gap in college
major choice, changes in the gender gap in graduate degree attainment conditional
college major, and changes in graduate field conditional on college major and having a
graduate degree.