The Gender Gap in Unemployment Rates for Recent College Graduates

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education examines the employment status of college graduates one year after they earned their bachelor’s degree. The data shows that in 2009, 8 percent of all women who earned a bachelor’s degree in the 2007-08 academic year were unemployed. For men who had earned a bachelor’s degree in 2007-08, 10 percent were unemployed.

Of course, this was a time when the U.S. economy was in the doldrums. In 2001, only 5 percent of men and 5 percent of women who had earned a bachelor’s degree in the 1999-2000 academic year were unemployed. Thus, the major recession of 2008 appears to have had a greater impact on the employment prospects for male college graduates that is the case for women with a college degree.

For women who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2007-08 and were employed one year later, some 28 percent had a job that was unrelated to the degree that they had earned. This was up from 22 percent in 2001. For men who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2007-08 and were employed in 2009, 26 percent had a job that was unrelated to their degree.

The report, New College Graduates at Work: Employment Among 1992–93, 1999–2000, and 2007–08 Bachelor’s Degree Recipients 1 Year After Graduation, may be downloaded by clicking here.