Follow your Passion or the Money? Gender Differences in Educational Choices and Labor Market Outcomes

Abstract

Men and women make very different higher educational choices, a pattern well-documented across countries. This paper investigates the motivations underlying these gender differences and their downstream consequences for labor market outcomes. Using survey data collected from a representative sample of French higher education students, we document that women are significantly more likely than men to prioritize following their passion over earnings and career prospects when choosing a field of study. This passion-over-pay orientation is coherent with a broader constellation of gendered preferences: women's more diverse academic interests in secondary school, lower parental pressure to pursue high-earning fields, and stronger preferences for workplace well-being over career advancement. Fields such as humanities and arts disproportionately attract passion-driven students, who are also aware that their salary prospects are more modest. We then turn to the labor market consequences of these gendered study choices, using a large European survey. We examine how gender differences in field of study translate into vertical and horizontal mismatches in the labor market, and analyze differences in workplace satisfaction across fields. Across countries, we find greater mismatch among graduates of passion-oriented fields such as humanities and arts with implications for gender gaps in earnings, job quality and satisfaction. Joint work with Alex Matinez and Claudia Senik.