Attainment and gender equality in higher education: evidence from a large-scale expansion

Abstract

We examine the causal effects of the drastic expansion in Turkish higher education on the attainment disadvantage of women by using the variation in exposure intensity across cohorts and regions. The expansion increased the attainment rates of both genders but did not significantly reduce the gender gap after controlling for time trend. Studying the mechanisms, we observe that the expansion in social sciences, more than half of additional slots, benefited men and women evenly, but the expansion in engineering, about 25% of additional slots, benefited men more. The results are robust to a wide range of checks for alternative specifications, samples, and policies.