University Gender Gap
*As much as I am loathe to admit it, this post contains a link to an article in USA Today. However, I'm not exactly sure how this article got into this newspaper, since it clearly is too long to fit on one page.*
USA Today has an article out about the growing gender gap in college composition, as women occupy an increasing number of spots in university classes. After decades of exclusion from higher education, women are now taking a growing majority of seats -- a reversal from the 1960s which seems to be growing.
Obviously, there are some causes for concern here, particularly because the gap is most acute in lower-income minority communities (in fact, among students from upper-income families [70,000 and up] are split evenly between men and women). There are questions of whether colleges are offering programs or learning environments that are attractive to men, particularly those in low-income demographic groups. With declining professional opportunities for people without college degrees, colleges do need to figure out how to serve everyone, not a select income group or gender.
But I think this research may be missing nuances of what is driving the gender gap. As mentioned above, I think a key thing keeping men from attending college, or graduating if they do go, is a lack of programs which they find desirable. Investing money, time, and effort into a degree that is not interesting to them. People are going to be more likely to decide to get a "head start" on their careers and skip out on the college process.
But why would men do this in greater numbers than women? Well, here's my theory: There is increasing evidence that there are women who are getting college degrees with little intention of using them in the long-term, as they prefer to become full-time homemakers after getting married and having children. This may give women a rather different time horizon under which they consider their college decisions.
Let's say you've gotten the message that college is "good," in some way. You don't really know what you want to do with your life, and most college degree programs don't sound that fun. Are you going to be more likely to pursue college if you think you'll be in this unexciting career for five to ten years, or for the rest of your life?
I'd guess that people with a shorter time horizon would be more likely to make the college gamble.
Of course, there are some problems with this thesis. Most obviously, people with a short time horizon would seem less inclined to undertake the effort of college at all, given the limited period during which they would gain returns from this investment. In addition, I would assume that more women from upper income brackets plan to stay home with their children -- it's just not financially practical for women in many other brackets. Yet it is in the highest income levels where we see the smallest gender gap (2%).
However, despite these problems, I think the differing motivations and time horizons for men and women in making educational decisions are an important part of determining why the gender gap exists, instead of simply assuming that men need increased motivation or colleges need to change to attract men.
USA Today has an article out about the growing gender gap in college composition, as women occupy an increasing number of spots in university classes. After decades of exclusion from higher education, women are now taking a growing majority of seats -- a reversal from the 1960s which seems to be growing.
Obviously, there are some causes for concern here, particularly because the gap is most acute in lower-income minority communities (in fact, among students from upper-income families [70,000 and up] are split evenly between men and women). There are questions of whether colleges are offering programs or learning environments that are attractive to men, particularly those in low-income demographic groups. With declining professional opportunities for people without college degrees, colleges do need to figure out how to serve everyone, not a select income group or gender.
But I think this research may be missing nuances of what is driving the gender gap. As mentioned above, I think a key thing keeping men from attending college, or graduating if they do go, is a lack of programs which they find desirable. Investing money, time, and effort into a degree that is not interesting to them. People are going to be more likely to decide to get a "head start" on their careers and skip out on the college process.
But why would men do this in greater numbers than women? Well, here's my theory: There is increasing evidence that there are women who are getting college degrees with little intention of using them in the long-term, as they prefer to become full-time homemakers after getting married and having children. This may give women a rather different time horizon under which they consider their college decisions.
Let's say you've gotten the message that college is "good," in some way. You don't really know what you want to do with your life, and most college degree programs don't sound that fun. Are you going to be more likely to pursue college if you think you'll be in this unexciting career for five to ten years, or for the rest of your life?
I'd guess that people with a shorter time horizon would be more likely to make the college gamble.
Of course, there are some problems with this thesis. Most obviously, people with a short time horizon would seem less inclined to undertake the effort of college at all, given the limited period during which they would gain returns from this investment. In addition, I would assume that more women from upper income brackets plan to stay home with their children -- it's just not financially practical for women in many other brackets. Yet it is in the highest income levels where we see the smallest gender gap (2%).
However, despite these problems, I think the differing motivations and time horizons for men and women in making educational decisions are an important part of determining why the gender gap exists, instead of simply assuming that men need increased motivation or colleges need to change to attract men.
posted by N at 6:51 PM
2 Comments:
hmmm... another factor that might affect this is that men start off at a higher salary than women do, so the women might be pursuing the college degree to raise their potential income. men traditionally have more jobs open to them (even stuff like plumbing and construction pay more than an office job) and women have to have an education to bump up their salaries... so... we could be experiencing the same amount of males pursuing higher education but that just looks like it's smaller compared to the amount of women who are trying to "up their stock" =) hahahaha... what do you think?
that's a good spin -- I like that. I think the absolute number of males in college has increased, as has the percentage of male high school graduates pursuing higher education.
But, it follows that the number of women is increasing at an even greater rate.
I think that the idea that women without higher ed have fewer high-paying jobs available to them than men do seems logical, and likely is factual. In that case, your interpretation makes sense -- women who want to make more money would have no choice but to go to college.
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