The Deepening Gender Divide in Credentials, 2000–2020: Continuity, Change, and Implications

Oct 15, 2026

The Deepening Gender Divide in Credentials, 2000–2020 analyzes how gender gaps in educational attainment persisted and evolved across bachelor’s and advanced degrees in the United States. It shows a stable, high-level bachelor’s gap, an emerging female advantage in advanced credentials—especially professional degrees—and links this deepening divide to more women enrolling in for-profit institutions and growing gender differences in student indebtedness. The study argues these patterns reflect shifts in higher-education financing and their long-term implications.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time1 h 0 min

AccessFree to download

Gender gaps in credentials since the mid-1980s

Continuity in bachelor’s degree patterns

Change since 2000 in advanced credentials

Fields, institutions, and financing shifts

Implications for inequality and future outcomes

The Deepening Gender Divide in Credentials, 2000–2020: Continuity, Change, and Implications claudia buch mann , rachel e . dwyer , and man yao In the United States, women have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men since the mid-1980s. We examine the historical continuities in this trend and its sources, as well as changes since 2000 in gender gaps in advanced credentials, fields of study, types of institutions attended, and financingfor higher education. The gender gap in bachelor’s degrees has remained stable at a high level over this period and a female advantage in advanced degrees emerged, especially in professional degrees. The deepening gender divide in credentials coincided with rising shares of women attending for-profit institutions and an emerging gender divide in student indebtedness. Thus, women disproportionately carry the promise and bear the costs of educational expansion, with far reaching implications for the future. Keywords: gender, credentials, higher education, inequality, debt It is now generally known that women began to earn more college degrees than men in the United States in the mid-1980s. The emergence of this gender divide in credentials has drawn considerable scholarly and policy attention and reflects a complex and significant change in the U.S. gender regime. With greater opportunity and fewer barriers, women were finally able to see their educational attainment match their long-standing higher levels of academic achievement. Women have now outpaced men in earning bachelor’s degrees for several decades (Buchmann and DiPrete 2006, DiPrete and Buchmann 2013) such that in 2022, among twenty-five- to twenty-nine-year-olds, 44 percent of women have completed a bachelor’s degree compared to only 35 percent of men (NCES 2023a) .1 Claudia Buchmann is a College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate of the Institution for Population Research at The Ohio State University, United States. Rachel E. Dwyer is a professor of sociology and faculty affiliate of the Institute for Population Research at The Ohio State University, United States. Man Yao is an assistant professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Denison University, United States. © 2025 Russell Sage Foundation. Buchmann, Claudia, Rachel E. Dwyer, and Man Yao. 2025.“The Deepening Gender Divide in Credentials, 2000–2020: Continuity, Change, and Implications.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 11(1): 154–77. [https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2025.11.1.08. We](https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2025.11.1.08. We) appreciate the helpful comments of the editors and the participants of the RSF workshop on this special issue, as well as a small grant from the OSU Department of Sociology. Direct correspondence to: Claudia Buchmann, at [buchmann.4@osu.edu](buchmann.4@osu.edu); Rachel E. Dwyer, [at dwyer.46@osu.edu](at dwyer.46@osu.edu); Man Yao, [at many@denison.edu](at many@denison.edu), United States. Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 1. Throughout this article, we use the term bachelor’s degree to include the bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, bachelor of engineering, bachelor of fine arts, and all other variants. t h e d e e p e n i n g g e n d e r d i v i d e i n c r e d e n t i a l s , 2 0 0 0 – 2 0 2 0 15 5 This article provides an in-depth examination of trends in the female advantage in credentials since 2000, with particular attention to trends from 2010 to 2020, a decade bookended by the Great Recession of 2008 and the COVID pandemic–fueled economic crisis of 2020. Although a large body of research has developed around the female advantage in credentials, to the best of our knowledge, no overall assessment of the gender-specific trends since 2000 has been published. Here

FAQs

How did the gender gap in bachelor’s degrees change between 2000 and 2020?

It remained stable at a high level, while women’s share of educational attainment in bachelor’s degrees continued to outpace men over the longer period.

What new female advantage emerged in advanced degrees?

A female advantage in advanced degrees became more apparent, especially in professional degrees, as gender divides broadened beyond the bachelor’s level.

What factors coincided with the deepening gender divide in credentials?

Rising shares of women attending for-profit institutions and an emerging gender divide in student indebtedness coincided with the deepening divide in credentials.

Oct 15, 2026

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