For the past 30 years women have outnumbered men in college. Now a recent Pew report finds that more women than men from low-income backgrounds are borrowing to finance college. What factors influence this gender gap in debt risk? Work by Martha Bailey and Susan Dynarski suggests that one reason is worse prospects for well-paying jobs for women without college degrees. “Girls and boys are raised in the same families, attend the same elementary and secondary schools, and face the same college prices… [but] men and women operate in segregated labor markets and, therefore, face different returns to human capital.”

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