Men as growing academic minority in graduate schools

¶ … men are a growing academic minority in graduate schools?

During the Second Wave of the feminist movement of the 1970s, one of the key lobbying points of the women's movement was the need for women to achieve parity amongst males in undergraduate and graduate education. Today, the reality of gender disparities in education is far more complex. Women already outnumber males as undergraduates and are beginning to outnumber them in graduate schools as well. However, before 'victory' is declared for feminism, it is important to view these statistics with some caution. Although the trend may indicate that males will be outnumbered by females at the undergraduate, masters and Ph.D. levels this does not mean that women are on a sunny and uncomplicated path to economic enrichment and personal fulfillment.

A recent study by the U.S. Council of Graduate Schools found that between the years of 2008-2009, "women were award 50.4% of all Ph.Ds., compared to 44% just eight years ago" (Sanchez 1). This indicates that women are overtaking males in pursuit of higher education as well as for undergraduate degrees. This is not a statistical 'blip' but seems to be an indication of a larger trend. "Since 1986, women have earned the majority of master's degrees" (Sanchez 1). However, there is still the caveat that the degrees women are pursuing tend to be in lower-paying academic and vocational fields than males. For example, "most women got their Ph.Ds. In public administration, health sciences and education" (Sanchez 1). These areas tend to be far less lucrative than STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematical) subjects. Also, students who pursue these degrees often do not go on to teach in an academic setting, which indicates that the disparity between male professors and females in academia may still persist longer than expected. And even for male and female professors with the same credentials: "a male professor with a Ph.D. earns $87,200 on average, compared to $70,600" (Sanchez 1).

The figures regarding female participation in graduate studies that are most lucrative and in high demand are far more sobering. For example, "in mathematics, computer sciences and physical sciences…no more than 30% of doctoral graduates are women. In business, about 39% of Ph.Ds. go to women. The biggest disparity is in engineering, where 78% of doctorates go to men" (Sanchez 1). However, although the disparity is still great, some people have pointed to hopeful signs that it is abating. For example, twenty years ago, "women earned about 10% of the doctoral degrees in engineering. Now, they earn 22%," an impressive increase (Sanchez 1).

At the lower levels of education, the statistics regarding female empowerment are far more impressive. For example, "women earned 45.1% of bachelor's degrees in business in 1984-5 and 50% by 2001-2, up from only 9.1% in 1970-1" (Francis 1). Women are also clearly 'using' these degrees to attain economic solvency in the workplace. For example, in 1960, "only 39% of 30-to-34-year-olds were employed and 47% of those employed were teachers; 73% had children at home" (Francis 1). In contrast, of female college graduates of 1980: 30-to-34 years of age: "70% were employed, only 36% of those employed were teachers, and 60% had children at home" (Francis 1). As new career paths opened up to women in higher-wage fields than education, women had a greater economic incentive to seek out self-improvement. "The overall gender pay gap from 59 cents for every dollar earned by men in 1960 to 77 cents in 2008" (St. Rose 1).

Yet while the pay gap between males and females overall is widening, women even at the undergraduate level shy away from majoring in the most lucrative STEM majors. Women still tend to favor majors in subjects such as psychology, the arts and humanities, social work, and education. While these are indeed notable and laudable pursuits and can be very personally fulfilling, they have high rates of unemployment after graduation. This is, of course, always a concern, but is particularly worrisome in the 'soft' job market for graduates today, where jobs are particularly scarce for twenty-somethings. Students today also are often shouldered with very high levels of student loan debt. A student who graduates with high levels of debt with an unmarketable degree in the humanities could find herself permanently disempowered economically in comparison with her male counterparts. And if she has taken out additional loans to pay for graduate school and forestalled fulltime employment because of graduate studies, the wage gap could grow even greater between males and females in future years.

Even on the undergraduate level, "in 2007, women earned 17% of bachelor's degrees in engineering, compared to 79% of bachelor's degrees in education" (St. Rose 1). Even amongst women who major in lucrative STEM fields, women tend to gravitate towards 'soft' science and business-related subjects like marketing, engineering, and biology. Their "underrepresentation is particularly severe in majors like computer science, physics, and engineering -- fields that include better-paying jobs after graduation, even compared to other mathematically demanding fields" (St. Rose 1). As a point of comparison, the average starting salary for mechanical engineering major with only a B.A. was $59,000, versus $50,000 for a student with the same credentials who majored in economics (St. Rose 1). The income disparities between such 'hard' and 'soft' majors are even wider. Education, for example, is traditionally the field in which many women choose to pursue up Ph.Ds. Yet "an education major working full time earned, on average, about 60% as much as an engineering major working full time ($525 versus $851 per week)" (St. Rose 1). This disparity and devaluation of traditionally female jobs may not necessarily be fair but it is a sad economic reality that female graduates literally cannot afford (financially speaking) to ignore.

However, even within the STEM field for the select women who make it to the upper echelons of academia, trouble awaits them. First of all, there is the persistent pay disparity. "Full-time female workers with STEM degrees earn $58,000 a year…men with the same degrees are making $85,000" (Strasser 1). And more women with STEM degrees -- both graduate and undergraduate -- are likely to leave their occupations early: women are 45 times more likely to quite STEM jobs than their male counterparts (Strasser 1). Poorer pay and therefore less incentive to put in the long hours needed to succeed in STEM employment; childcare responsibilities; and institutional prejudice are all cited as reasons for this trend (Strasser 1).