With recent stats showing more women are completing their post-secondary (or college/graduate) education than men, how do you think this will impact future gender dynamics?

3 comments

1. Degrees will become less valuable, meaning women as a whole won’t make much more than they currently do.

   I know that’s a big downer, but historically whenever a popular women’s career started making lots of money, it suspiciously became “men’s work” or a male-dominated field within a generation. (See: computer science) Society in centuries past sometimes put actual effort in keeping men on average earning more than women on average.

   Maybe we’re at the point culturally where everyone will allow women as a group to be more wealthy and successful than men. But I’m not holding my breath.

2. I consider it more a reflection of current gender dynamics than a way to foretell future dynamics. From the research I’ve read, women go into higher education more and achieve more degrees because they need to in order to achieve the types of jobs and positions that they want and that pay them well. Most female-dominated professions that don’t require a degree also pay terribly.

   Men are often able to be hired for jobs that pay better even without a college degree. A lot of male-dominated professions that don’t require a degree pay far better than female-dominated professions that don’t require a degree.

   All of that is based on the current gender dynamics and historical ones still having an effect. Interestingly, there is research showing that when women join a profession and begin to be prevalent or dominant in that profession, the profession often loses both prestige and compensation on average. So, even if women are achieving more degrees in more fields, that doesn’t mean those professional paths will continue to be as profitable or viable for future women.

   I’ll be interested to see how it all actually plays out and whether there are any tangible or measurable effects on gender dynamics.

   (Edited for typos)

3. I can’t speak for other occupations, but I see it reflected in my grad school (architecture). Women are about 60% of my graduating class and given that we are required to get a professional degree to become licensed, I am hopeful that there will be a surge of females in the design fields (built environment design in particular). Women might end up outnumbering men in those fields in the next few decades.