Women are underrepresented in both STEM college majors and STEM jobs. Even with a STEM college degree, women are significantly less likely to work in STEM occupations than their male counterparts. This paper studies the determinants of the gender gap in college major choice and job choice between STEM and non-STEM fields and quantifies how much the gender wage gap can be explained by these choices using an extended Roy Model. I find that men’s ability sorting behavior is statistically stronger than women’s in major choice, yet gender differences in ability and ability sorting together explain only a small portion of the gender gap in STEM majors. The gender gap in STEM occupations cannot be explained by the gender differences in ability or ability sorting. Instead, a part of the gender gap in STEM occupations can be explained by the fact that women are more represented in less Math-intensive STEM majors and graduates from those majors are more likely to be well-matched to and to take jobs in non-STEM occupations. The other part of the gender gap in STEM occupations can be explained by women’s preference over work-life balance and women’s home location. The counterfactual analysis shows that about 13.7% of the gender wage gap among college graduates can be explained by the returns to STEM careers among the non-STEM women in the top 6.7% of the ability distribution.

在STEM大学专业和STEM工作中，女性任职人数均不足。即使拥有STEM大学学位，女性从事STEM工作的可能性也明显低于男性。本文研究了STEM和非STEM领域大学专业选择和工作选择中性别差距的决定因素，并使用扩展的Roy模型量化了这些选择可以解释多少性别工资差距。我发现，在主要选择中，男性的能力分类行为在统计上比女性强，但能力和能力分类中的性别差异仅说明了STEM专业中性别差距的一小部分。STEM职业中的性别差距不能由能力或能力排序中的性别差异来解释。取而代之的是，STEM职业中的部分性别差距可以用以下事实来解释：女性在数学密集程度较低的STEM专业中所占的比例更高，而这些专业的毕业生则很可能与非STEM专业相匹配并找到工作。 STEM职业。STEM职业中性别差距的另一部分可以通过妇女偏爱工作与生活的平衡以及妇女在家庭中的位置来解释。反事实分析表明，在能力分布最高的6.7％的非STEM女性中，STEM职位的回报可以解释大学毕业生中男女工资差距的13.7％。