Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Girl Power: Females Dominate US Higher Education

The charts below are based on data from the Department of Education, showing some interesting trends.

1. Before 1981, men received more bachelor's degrees than women, and in every year since then women have received more bachelor's degrees than men (see graph below). In the most recent year for which actual data are available (2005-2006), 135 women received bachelor's degrees for every 100 men, and that F:M bachelor’s degree ratio is expected to increase to 150:100 by 2016. By 2016, women will receive 60% of bachelor's degrees vs. 40% for men.

2. In most years before 1985, men received more master's degrees than women, and in every year since then women have received more degrees than men (see graph below). In the most recent year for which actual data are available (2005-2006), 150 women received master's degrees for every 100 men, and that F:M master’s degree ratio is expected to increase to 170:100 by 2016 (see graph below). By 2016, women will receive 63% of master's degrees vs. 37% for men.


3. In every year before 2006, men received more doctoral degrees than women, and in every year after that women are projected to earn more doctoral degrees than men (see graph below). By 2016, women will receive slightly more than 55% of doctoral degrees vs. less than 45% for men.


Update: See related Coyote Blog post here.

29 Comments:

At 11/12/2008 9:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

maybe in the goal of "fairness" we need to start affirmative action programs in favor of men?

Any takers?

 
At 11/12/2008 11:33 AM, Blogger Free2Choose said...

Don't tell Larry Summers. It might get out to the general public and cause, who knows what sort of shenanigans.

 
At 11/12/2008 11:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now I want to see the following graphs:
1) the number of women who stay unmarried after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D);
2) the number of women who are unhappy after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D);
3) the number of women who get divorced after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D);
4) the number of women who let strangers, err... babysitters, nannies, etc. raise their kids after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D).

P.S.

That would be fun, but don't let the femi-nazis get hold of the data. :-)

 
At 11/12/2008 12:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

1994: Publication of the book "Failing at Fairness" that primary schools and standardized test preparers were systematically excluding girls from higher education. This book was a big deal at the time.

LOL

 
At 11/12/2008 10:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Where are the diversity advocates when you need them?

 
At 11/13/2008 10:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Proof of the systematic emasculation of the American Male. What next? Skirts?

 
At 11/13/2008 11:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does the chart show the number of men who want to puke and cannnot tolerate the polictical correctness or multicultural rot in Academia?

Sherwood Smith

 
At 11/13/2008 12:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My son is about to pursue his PhD in History and I sent this to him last night.

Let me know when you get the charts that anonymous mentioned. He'll need to see those before he gets married. :)

Ed Mac

 
At 11/13/2008 3:18 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Men wearing skirts? This is America not Scotland ;)

 
At 11/13/2008 3:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about the number of women who are still STUPID after their degrees?

 
At 11/13/2008 3:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'd like to see this broken down by discipline. There's been a developing bubble in useless degrees over the past 30 years.

I can assure you productive concentrations in science and engineering are still dominated by men. With the slowing economy will come a drop in female degrees, as there won't be as much expendable income to send your child to four years of "humanities studies".

 
At 11/13/2008 5:19 PM, Blogger Lester Hunt said...

"maybe in the goal of "fairness" we need to start affirmative action programs in favor of men?"

We already have them. The Pres. of William and Mary famously explained, something like, its called William and Mary, not Mary and Mary.

 
At 11/13/2008 5:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

At this point, women by and large stay out of the engineering, physics and mathematics programs. Unfortunately, there is pressure to make those areas more chick friendly (read, more anti-male). By and large universities teach a procedural heuristic model for most subjects (instead of critical thinking & inquiry). For problems of almost any size state "solutions" are emphasized. On top of all of that, the ubiquitous misandry and "every man is a potential rapist" mentality have transformed many universities into "No Boys Allowed" juvenile clubs for girls. Men have increasingly figured out that the university system is hostile to them.

Great charts. They explain a lot.

 
At 11/14/2008 5:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This will ultimately hurt the feminists. Not only will there be a backlash against their vicious campaigns, but men are the overwhelming producers of technological advances, which will now surely dwindle.

 
At 11/14/2008 7:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So, all these women are going to have degrees and the men aren't going to value the degrees... 'cause they can't relate and commiserate. And the women are going to be saddled with debt, 'cause the cost is going up.
So a lot fewer people will want to get married... and a lot more kids will be in daycare.
How many men are going into daycare?...Oh that's right they're sexual predators.

 
At 11/14/2008 11:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Considering that women average 4-5 IQ points below men, this is decidedly not a positive trend.

 
At 11/14/2008 12:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Those who wonder why the PhD degrees so much longer were dominated by Males, while master degrees are far more dominated by females, might consider this:

Since 9/11 the USA closed up to quite some Asian countries PhD students. These were predominantly male. Part of them went to Europe but the USA is now pushing European governments to keep f.i. Iranians out of studies like Aerospace, Physics and Mechanical Engineering.

It would at least be interesting to compare these figures with Germany and Finland (where 23% of higher education students is enrolled in science and engineering).

 
At 11/14/2008 2:06 PM, Blogger Auntie Ann said...

I found the data for 2005-2006 broken down by field of study and gender on the Dept. of Eds website.

I graphed it here:

Square Dots

 
At 11/15/2008 12:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

their women shall lead them

 
At 11/15/2008 2:13 PM, Blogger Crimson Wife said...

It's a bit misleading to simply focus on the percent degrees earned by each gender. One might conclude from looking at them, that men are less likely now than in the past to be pursuing higher education. That's not the case; there has been a marked increase in the percentage of the male population holding a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. In 1970, only 13.5% of men over 25 held a bachelor's degree, while in 2007 30% did. If I did my math correctly, that's an increase of 222%.

The reason why there's been a shift in the gender distribution has been because the increase in female participation in higher education has exceeded the increase in male participation. Back in 1970, a mere 7.9% of women over 25 held a bachelor's degree, while in 2007 28% did. Again assuming I did my math correctly, that's an increase of 354%.

Both men AND women today are significantly more likely to be college graduates than in the past. So I'm not particularly worried about men being "left behind" educationally.

 
At 11/15/2008 2:30 PM, Blogger Crimson Wife said...

1) the number of women who stay unmarried after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D);
2) the number of women who are unhappy after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D);
3) the number of women who get divorced after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D);
4) the number of women who let strangers, err... babysitters, nannies, etc. raise their kids after their degrees (BA, MS, Ph.D).


I'm not going to touch #2, but as for #1 and #3, here's some data:

-According to 2006 Census data, 59% of female college graduates age 29-34 are married, compared with 51% of non-graduates. For women aged 35-44, the difference is 75% to 62%.
-The divorce rate for female college graduates is 16% vs. 35% for non-graduates.

As for #4, married mothers of young children ARE somewhat more likely to be in the workforce if they are college graduates. But the big difference is between those who have only a high school diploma or less, and those who have attended college (regardless of whether they actually finished their degree):

H.S. dropout 28.2%
H.S. graduate, no college 46.5%
Some college 58.8%
Bachelor's or higher 62.9%

 
At 11/15/2008 4:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think this is a symptom of a culture that's completely out of touch with reality .
MEN virtually do all of the real and practical development /construction/
maintanence , all the while , women get degrees in pseudo sciences and then become paper pushers .
It's no wonder that the west is in decline economically and in every way possible.

 
At 11/15/2008 4:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I recently attended a university . It is situated in a very rural extremely low crime area. There had panic buttons set up all over the campus for the very vulnerale wimminses , just in case some bad man might cause them so harm .

 
At 11/15/2008 5:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Numbers, graphs, statistics — what does it all prove?

That white women are now firmly non-viable as an evolutionary means, making us, white men, and all of us generally, obsolete as viable human types.

 
At 11/16/2008 5:42 AM, Blogger meep said...

As others have noted, it doesn't mean much when you're using gross numbers, not broken out by field. Some Ph.D.s are more equal than others -- some can help you get a "real" job outside the teaching world, and some are basically certificates to a higher wage in your union job (i.e., education), and some just give you the ability to teach the next round of suckers going for the particular degree.

As a pyramid scheme, it's not very lucrative for each successive generation.

 
At 11/16/2008 9:56 AM, Blogger Mark J. Perry said...

See new CD post featuring a F:M degree breakdown, BY FIELD, and thanks to Auntie Ann at Square Dots for doing the breakdown and creating the excellent charts.

 
At 11/16/2008 4:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Men wearing skirts? This is America not Scotland."

The Anonymous poster that laid this scurrilous lie before your readers should (and would) be horse-whipped for impugning the Great Celtic race of Scots.

"It's no'a skirt, ye blithering idiot, it's a KILT!"

Before we forget what a world was like when men were men, (and women knew and respected/appreciated the difference) here's an apropos article on the 'contributions of Scotsmen'!

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=5984


AlmostMusicPhD (and a damn proud Scot!)

 
At 11/16/2008 6:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would send women the message that it is their primary function in society to bear and raise good children . It is women's RESPONSIBILTY.

I would also send men the message that it is their primary duty to be good husbands to women .

Before and after the children are soundly raised , then , it's time for other aspects of a full life.

Everyone would be happier.

 
At 11/16/2008 6:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Re : kilts

I'm Scottish and we are not easily offended .
A kilt is not a skirt. If need to question this , you might find yourself pulling a caber out of your azz.
lol

 

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