%0 Report %A Chuan, Amanda %A Zhang, Weilong %T Non-college Occupations, Workplace Routinization, and the Gender Gap in College Enrollment %D 2023 %8 2023 Apr %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) %C Bonn %7 IZA Discussion Paper %N 16089 %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp16089 %X This paper explores how non-college occupations contributed to the gender gap in college enrollment, where women overtook men in college-going. Using instrumental variation from routinization, we show that the decline of routine-intensive occupations displaced the non-college occupations of women, raising female enrollment. Embedding this instrumental variation into a dynamic Roy model, we find that routinization decreased returns to the non-college occupations of women, increasing their college premium. In contrast, men's non-college occupations were less susceptible to routinization. Our model estimates that workplace routinization accounted for 44% of the growth in female enrollment during 1980-2000. %K occupations %K human capital %K college enrollment %K gender %K automation