Educational Segregation in STEM/Non-STEM Fields and Wage Gender Gap: Evidence from the U.S.A.

Abstract

This paper uses the 2018–2020 U.S. Census and American Community Survey microdata to examine the extent to which gender differences in graduates' choice of degree fields - STEM or Non-STEM contribute to the gender pay gap in the United States. With the Blinder-Oaxaca wage decomposition method, this paper finds that among the highly-educated labor force in the U.S. for the period 2018-2020, the individual background characteristics (race, region), family characteristics (marital status, number of children), education-related characteristics (degree fields, the highest educational attainment, and school type), and job-related characteristics (hours worked, work experience, job sector, and occupation type) combined can explain 55.96% of the gender pay gap. Among them, whether an individual chooses a college major related to a STEM field (ie. whether or not to obtain a degree in a STEM field) contributes 2.4%-5.2% of the "explanatory part", and can only explain 1.35%-2.91% of the gender pay gap. Finally, the results of this study showed that, although the content of the field of study (STEM/Non-STEM) seems not to explain too much of the current gender wage gap in the U.S. highly-educated workforce, it is hard to deny that educational segregation is still a barrier to gender equality. In addition, this paper also found that the gender pay gap for STEM graduates is 3.77% smaller than the gender pay gap for Non-STEM graduates. What's more, the choice of degree subjects can explain 9.91% of the gender gap for STEM graduate samples.