Wage expectations for higher education students in Spain

Abstract

We assess the ability of students to forecast future earnings, by using data on expected wages self-reported by college students with different graduation horizons. We find a signifficant gender effect, by which wages expectations are systematically lower for women than for men, this effect being different with different degree type in the case of junior students. However, the gender gap in actual wages exceeds the gender gap in wage expectations, suggesting that women do not fully account for the gender gap in their future earnings. Also, junior students with low college performance unrealistically predict higher expected wages. The comparison between students' wage expectations and actual wages for college graduates indicates that college students tend to over predict future wages, and overprediction is higher for women and for fresher students