DT 05 - 24 Gendered Human Capital Allocation during the COVID-19 Shock: Evidence on Field of Study Choices in Uruguay

Field-of-study choices shape human capital and subsequent labor-market outcomes. We study whether COVID-19 coincided with gender-differential changes across university fields in Uruguay using administrative records and field-specific difference-in-differences models with pre-pandemic gender trends. Women's relative probability of choosing Psychology increased by 2.3 percentage points in 2021, about 24% of their pre-pandemic probability. Psychology is the only field that survives Benjamini-Hochberg and Bonferroni corrections. Given that Psychology lies in the lower half of the distribution of estimated returns to graduation, this compositional shift may have implications for future gender differences in earnings.

JEL Classification: 121, J24, 123, J16.
Keywords: Pandemic, Field of study, Educational gender gap.