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UP IN STEM, DOWN IN BUSINESS: CHANGING COLLEGE MAJOR DECISIONS WITH THE GREAT RECESSION
Author(s) -
Liu Shimeng,
Sun Weizeng,
Winters John V.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
contemporary economic policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.454
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1465-7287
pISSN - 1074-3529
DOI - 10.1111/coep.12396
Subject(s) - recession , race (biology) , ethnic group , great recession , economics , business cycle , demographic economics , finance , labour economics , political science , keynesian economics , sociology , gender studies , law
We use the American Community Survey (ACS) to investigate the extent to which college major decisions were affected during and after the Great Recession with special attention to business and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as well as the heterogeneity across demographic groups. Several conclusions are reached. First, the Great Recession increased the frequency of STEM majors but decreased the frequency of business majors. Second, the increase for STEM fields spreads across several detailed STEM majors, while the decrease in business majors is especially concentrated among finance and management. Third, we find strong heterogeneous effects of the Great Recession by gender and race/ethnicity. ( JEL I20, J24)