Non-College Occupations, Workplace Routinization, and Female College Enrollment

Abstract

We evaluate the impact of routinization from 1960 to 2000 on college enrollment. Among non-college workers, routine occupations employed a substantial share of the female workforce, but this share plummeted from 1970 on. Using shift-share instruments, we show that routinization displaced women’s non-college occupations, raising female enrollment. Men’s non-college occupations were less vulnerable, leaving their enrollment rates largely unaffected. Embedding this instrumental variation into a Roy model explains the mechanisms. Gender differences in skill create a comparative advantage in manual work for non-college men, leaving women to sort into routine jobs, which were more vulnerable to routinization.