What’s Behind the Reversal of the Gender Gap in Higher Education?

Article here. Excerpt:

'That women have grown more likely to graduate from college in the past few decades seems natural: We have access to a far wider range of careers than our great-grandmothers did, and the economy favors the well educated now more than ever. In light of the rising value of a college degree, it’s just strange that men haven’t prioritized their education as much as women have. Why haven’t they? Why do women increasingly outnumber men on college campuses?
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The results showed that among young people who had lived with their fathers at some point, 72.1 percent of women and 63.1 percent of men had some college education, meaning men enrolled at 87.5 percent the rate of women. Among those with no father present, the figures were 61.3 percent for women and 49.2 percent for men; the men enrolled at 80.3 percent the rate of women. In other words, a gender gap favoring women was evident in both groups, but the gap was larger among young people whose father was absent. The ratio of the relative risks (0.918) indicated that the finding was statistically significant: “Males were disproportionately less likely than females to attend college if they came from a family in which the father had been absent from birth.” The method Doherty et al. used to analyze the Add Health data did not allow for controlling for the usual background characteristics; however, the relative education levels of the Add Health sample’s male-female sibling pairs, who would share many socio-demographic traits, were consistent with those of the overall sample.'