Huge Gender Degree Gap at Age 22: National Crisis, Title IX, Government Funding? Probably Not
According to a report released yesterday by the BLS: "At age 22, women were more likely than men to be enrolled in college and were more likely to have received a bachelor's degree. Twenty-nine percent of women were attending college during the October when they were age 22, compared with 25.2% of men. Moreover, 12.8% of women had earned a bachelor's degree, compared with 6.9% of men (bold added, see chart above).
MP: In other words, at age 22, there are 185.5 women holding a Bachelor's degree (or more) for every 100 men who have graduated from college. Now that's a huge gender disparity in college completion at age 22, but I predict:
1. This gender degree gap will receive almost no media attention, and certainly no attention from the gender activists.
2. There will be no calls for government studies, or increased government funding to address the problem, and nobody will refer to this gender degree gap as a "crisis."
3. President Obama will not address the issue by signing an Executive Order creating the "White House Council on Men and Boys," like he did for women and girls.
4. Neither Obama nor Congress will address the gender degree gap by invoking the Title IX gender-equity law, like they have considered using for the gender gap in some college math and science programs.
5. Nobody will blame the gender degree gap on structural barriers from grades K-12 that discourage men from attending or graduating from college, like they do for explaining the gender gap for women in math and science.
NY Times: "Women make up 46% of the American workforce but hold just 25% of the jobs in engineering, technology and science, according to the National Science Foundation. To Sally K. Ride, a former astronaut, that persistent gender gap is a national crisis that will prove to be deeply detrimental to America’s global competitiveness."
12 Comments:
1. This gender degree gap will receive almost no media attention, and certainly no attention from the gender activists.
Quite the opposite: with a near 2:1 ration of women graduates to men, there will be outrage, OUTRAGE, that more CEOs are not women...
ration = ratio, of course.
Also, you made mention of Title IX. Will men be able to get some of their sports teams back?
I think Ride's idiocy is a bigger threat to US competitiveness.
And good posts Bosh.
Mark,
The sad fact that american males do not get that many college degrees should point you in another direction.
Instead of asking why females get the better part of them, you should ask: Why don't men get them too?
You are getting it wrong. You should not ask 'why do you get more than I do?', but 'why do get I less than you do?'. Only a few words, big difference.
Richard,
Why is this fact "sad"?
And I never interpreted Prof. Perry's comments as asking, "Why do you get more than I do?"
Quite the opposite.
Mark,
There is a possibility, just a hypothesis, that there are valid economic and sociological reasons for the disparity. There has been an increase in the average age women have their first child, the increase in age of marriage, and the increase willingness to have out of wedlock children. Studies about gender wage gaps show that job breaks to raise a child and unwillingness (on average) to work as many hours per week lowers earnings. A college degree wage premium would offset part of that wage loss and is an incentive for women to attain a college degree and to do it at an earlier age than men do.
The delay in childbirth and marriage would allow women to gain extra work experience and skills increasing their ability to reenter the workforce after child rearing. A college degree, along with the extra experience, increases their job reentry possibilities at a higher wage.
Most men do not take the same break in work experience and do not face the same job reentry problems. A college degree might be worth less to them than to women.
The data might also show that college costs have reached a level that for males the benefit is less than the cost in dollars and four years of lost work experience.
Furthermore, if you look at the top colleges, Harvard, Princeton, and the many others, I believe you find the male female ratios are very close to 50 percent at admissions and graduations.
The disparity is occurring outside the ranks of colleges that send a high proportion of students to top law, medical and MBA schools. Reentry and adjustments around families might be easier for this group, and there is no loss of relevant job experience attending college.
The different male female college numbers may be entirely rational to wage differentials caused by breaks to raise a family.
I don't understand Perry's comments to be advocating a solution for the gender gap but rather a figurative head scratching due to the fact that the treatment of men's overall deficiency versus the treatment of women's engineering deficiency are so different.
a head scratching bemusement I've grown to share.
It seems important to learn what young men are choosing to do, rather than go to college. However, I've never seen the question addressed.
A lot of huffing and puffing without any analysis and information here...
"In other words, the standard "disparity-proves-discrimination" dogma will not be applied in this case of a huge gender imbalance in college completion by age 22, because the disparity favors women, not men. But consider what happens when the disparity favors men..."
No, it is not being applied simply on who is favored. It's being applied based on reality. The disparity in this case isn't due to discrimination - if you feel it is, then please, make your case. I'd be all ears. The fact is, discrimination WAS the case when women were trailing. When barriers were lifted and programs were put in place to address the discrimination, women quickly began to realize the same success as their male counterparts (hence the title of your post). If the disparity wasn't due to discrimination, then none of those efforts would have changed anything. (Again, please make the case if you feel the disparity was due to something else).
Are you suggesting that the efforts made to encourage women to push through prejudice and "male-only perspective" attitudes and pressures are wrong? (And give me a break - men have had countless men-only support groups throughout history to help them advance their education, career and social status). Or, that given the new disparity that we should start doing the same for young men? If it's the latter, then please, speak up to your representatives or even better, do something about it and help young men. What on earth would be wrong with that? Because women took the initiative to organize and support each other in realizing our full potential, you feel the need to whine about the fact that men don't receive the same treatment?
Why is it so hard for men to accept and acknowledge the fact that they simply have not had to face the challenges and barriers that exist for women purely as a result of sex? It's just a fact. Accept it and then move on because the following is all that really matters:
-Of course it makes no sense to end discrimination through the use of discrimination
-Of course discrimination exists and it should be made illegal and socially unacceptable
-Disparities aren't a crisis.
-What is a national crisis (for any country) is talented individuals not pursuing careers or interests (resulting in lost innovation and productivity), simply as a result of discrimination (whether or not this is happening should be the question - not whether or not it's a tragedy)
And please, let's show some respect and not underestimate all the work women have done to reverse the disparity (not that that was the goal). And for God's sake, let's not suggest that they had it easy or didn't work to get where they are (just as hard, if not harder than their male counterparts) - all the while continuing to face and take on the challenges of their biological clocks and natural roles of motherhood.
I'd suggest a more important topic to discuss would be, "why are less young men going to college?" As a mother, I'm just as concerned about the challenges facing our young men, as I am about those facing our young women.
> There is a possibility, just a hypothesis, that there are valid economic and sociological reasons for the disparity.
NO NO NO NO NO.
All gender inequities are due to **SEXISM**.
SEXISM!!!!
Didn't you get the memo from NOW?
What?
Wait!?
Wait!?!?!?
What? No, Wait...
Inequities for men?
*Never Mind*
.
> Are you suggesting that the efforts made to encourage women to push through prejudice and "male-only perspective" attitudes and pressures are wrong?
Are you saying that there's no current anti-male bias in both the workplace and in university life that might be contributing to an attitude of "this shit isn't worth it"?
As someone who has seen a guy get blindsided by a woman making false claims in the workplace, and then summarily and without any effort of due process FIRED as a result of said false allegations (I know they were false, I was there when the events in question occurred), I can tell you FLAT OUT that there is a blatantly anti-male bias in the workplace.
"Talk to the hand".
> And give me a break - men have had countless men-only support groups throughout history to help them advance their education, career and social status.
And which they legally pretty much can't have any more, at least not groups with any official status.
Women, on the other hand, can still have their own clubs and social groups that exclude men...
Try, for example, to create a "National Organization for Men" and, more critically -- try and open up a chapter on a college campus.
Go on. Try it. See how quickly you get your head stomped on by the administration, as well as local feminists. You will look like a flounder in a matter of days.
To anonymous:
"The fact is, discrimination WAS the case when women were trailing. When barriers were lifted and programs were put in place to address the discrimination, women quickly began to realize the same success as their male counterparts (hence the title of your post)."
You do realize that this is absolutely horrible logic, right?
If there was no discrimination whatsoever, these programs would have still shown results like you describe.
It is impossible for government to address discrimination, as discrimination is subjective and untouchable accept by the discriminator. The government can only hope to counteract the effects of discrimination, and the results of these programs only show that the programs had fulfilled their goals. Nothing about them has proven anything about discrimination.
Dr. Perry is entirely correct that special interest groups latch on to statistics and assume "disparity proves discrimination" without any analysis into other causes. Since there are (rightfully) no interest groups devoted to men, there is no one to promote these statistics as signs of discrimination.
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