Will women soon outnumber men in workplace?

When the University of Massachusetts at Boston awarded Jeanette LaVasta a bachelor's of science degree in chemistry, the 27-year-old honors student joined a growing number of women relying on college degrees to pave the way to achievement.

LaVasta received a bachelor's degree in sociology from Cornell University in 1991, then spent four years working as a $24,000-a- year research lab assistant. She enrolled at UMass after learning that a secretary with no degree was earning more. "I figured a chemistry degree would open up a lot more options in terms of graduate study and professional work."

Federal statistics show that women are graduating from four-year colleges at higher rates than men, raising questions about the impact on the workplace and whether their sheer numbers may be enough to close salary gaps and end gender inequities. Fueling that debate is a 1998 report by education policy analyst Thomas Mortenson of Oskaloosa, Iowa. He argues that women's higher college enrollment and graduation rates will likely put them ahead in the future, better equipped to bid for white collar jobs in the nation's expanding service economy. With the current economy booming, more and more young men are delaying college or not going at all, decisions that could cause them to eventually fall behind, he says. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that women will earn 56 percent of the 1.1 million bachelor's degrees awarded in 1999. The number of women earning college degrees has surged 44 percent over the past two decades. By contrast, the number of men earning degrees from four-year colleges has dropped 6 percent over the last five years to 500,000 in 1998 from 532,881 in 1993. By 2008, say statisticians, women will significantly outnumber men in both graduate and undergraduate classrooms, representing 9.2 million of the nation's 16 million college students, reports the Digest of Education Statistics. Said Boston University spokesman Colin Riley, "Our freshman class, which will enter its sophomore year in September, is 60 percent female -- the first class ever to hit that mark, and we've had 126 commencements." Why the surge? Specialists point to a number of factors: More nontraditional students, such as LaVasta, are enrolling in college programs geared to their individual needs. Also, elementary and secondary schools have made efforts to encourage girls and prepare them for college. "There are a number of things going on," said economist Anthony Carnavale, vice president of public leadership for the Educational Testing Service division in Washington, D.C. "The biggest is that the labor market has changed so much that the value of a college education has almost doubled over the last 15 years. "At the same time, women are beginning to understand that they cannot earn money until they get a college degree. A man can still make a decent living with a high school diploma. On average, high school educated males make $28,000 per year. For women with just a high school diploma, it is about $15,000 per year. For them, the lost opportunities associated with not going to college are just too high." Boys are more apt to drop out of high school or choose vocational or technical schools that offer training for skilled jobs that pay $25,000 to $30,000 to start. In addition, a tiny percentage of boys, wooed by hot Internet- related jobs, are going directly from high school into the workplace or dropping out of college to pursue lucrative offers. But, specialists say, such a career path can be a poor substitute for going to college. "Every study you read shows that education is the key to future earnings potential and better jobs with higher pay and more flexibility," adds John Challenger, president of the Chicago-based outplacement firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "If you look at some of the growth jobs in marketing, health care, financial management, and advertising, for example, women are in those jobs in fairly large numbers. If they continue to earn degrees at the current rate, we could see an end to the glass ceiling for women." That depends on whether a college education continues to be the best and fastest route to upward mobility and higher pay. Critics also caution that any optimism concerning the impact of college- educated women on the workplace is premature and misleading.

Copyright 1999
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.