The Gender Gap in Lifetime Earnings for Higher Education Graduates

The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce has issued a new report entitled The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings.

They study finds that women with a bachelor’s degree have average lifetime earnings of $1,939,000. Men with a college degree have average lifetime earnings of $2,593,000. Thus, women college graduates earn on average less than 75 percent of what male college graduates earn over their lifetimes.

Women with master’s degrees have average lifetime earnings of $2,321,000. This is 67 percent of the lifetime earnings of men with a master’s degree.

Women with doctorates do slightly better compared to similarly educated men than women at other degree levels. Over the course of their lifetimes, women with doctoral degrees have average incomes of $2,857,000. This is 82.4 percent of the average lifetime earnings of men with doctorates.

For professional degree holders, the average lifetime earnings of men are more than $1 million higher than the average lifetime earnings of women with professional degrees.

Readers interested in downloading the entire report, can do so here.