What Explains Growing Gender and Racial Education Gaps?

ABSTRACT We study why US college graduation gaps by gender and race widened across cohorts. We develop a dynamic life‐cycle model with endogenous education, labor supply, marriage, fertility, and welfare participation. Preferences are fixed across cohorts and race/ethnic groups; changes arise from family background, labor‐market opportunities, and marriage markets. Labor‐market changes account for half of growth in women's graduation from the 1960 to 1980 cohorts. Parental background accounts for one quarter and marriage markets for one fifth. These shares are similar for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, but absolute gains were larger for White women, which led to wider racial gaps.