i show that female educational attainment has surpassed or is about to surpass male educational attainment in most industrialized countries these gaps reflect male overrepresentation among secondary school dropouts and female overrepresentation among tertiary education students and graduates existing evidence suggests that this pattern is a result of a combination of increasing returns to education and lower female effort costs of education a widening gender gap in education combined with recent wage and employment polarization will likely lead to widening inequalities and is linked to declining male labor force participation