The gender gap in education and late-life cognition: Evidence from multiple countries and birth cohorts

We document side-by-side trends in the gender gap of educational achievement and late-life cognition across countries. By and large, we find that, within the cohorts born between 1920 and 1959, women have had significantly lower educational attainment than men, with the gap narrowing over time. Correspondingly, we estimate a pronounced tendency of women’s cognition to improve over time relative to men. We investigate whether these co-movements are likely due to the narrowing gender gap in education inducing a relative improvement in women’s cognition. The data offer little support for such a causal relation. We discuss possible third factors that may underlie the observed parallel trends in education and cognition gender gaps.