The income advantage for early-career women college graduates compared to women without a college education may be a result of women graduates working more hours, rather than earning higher base salaries, according to a new study led by scholars at University College London.
The research team examined the annual income, hourly wages, and hours worked for more than 2,800 English millennials born in 1989 and 1990. When examining annual incomes alone, women college graduates earned an average of nearly 27 percent more than women without a college degree at age 26. The authors then controlled for background characteristics that often result in biased data and found the income premium for women college graduates fell to 13 percent.
However, when the authors examined hours worked, the pay premium among women with a college degree dropped to just 4.8 percent. This was due to college-educated women working an average of 2.3 hours more per week than women without degrees. Notably, this pattern did not appear among men; both graduate men and non-graduate men in full-time positions worked similar hours.
According to the authors, these findings suggest that data on annual income alone is not enough to determine the labor market advantage of earning a college degree. Going forward, future estimations should take hours worked into consideration.