LETTER FROM AMERICA: What is it with men these days? Remember the "gender gap"? Back in the bad old 1970s the gender gap was a measure of the extent to which men out-performed women in a range of fields, from wages, where they still do, to education, where, in the US at least, they most certainly do not. The gender gap has gone into reverse in education since the 1980s to a quite remarkable degree and is posing interesting questions for social scientists and business. Not to mention the male of the species, writes Patrick Smyth.
At colleges and universities across the US, the proportion of "bachelor" degrees awarded to women reached a post-war high this year at an estimated 57 per cent. The gender gap is even greater among Hispanics - only 40 per cent of that ethnic group's college graduates are male - and African-Americans, who are now seeing two women earn bachelor's degrees for every man.
When the first figures were compiled in 1870, men outnumbered women by six to one, and except for the second World War they were in the majority until the early 1980s. This year the number of women graduates is likely to total 698,000, and men, 529,000. Women, however, still receive fewer doctoral or professional degrees and are still outnumbered in many higher-paid fields, such as engineering, and some, but not all, the sciences.
The growing imbalance has its roots at secondary level, where high school graduation rates for men are now slightly lower than those for women, and in special education classes boys outnumber girls three to one. The US Department of Education reported in 1995 that "the gap in reading proficiency (favouring girls) is roughly equivalent to about one-and-a-half years' schooling". Boys are also more likely to be involved in delinquent or criminal behaviour or drug or alcohol abuse.
"Girls have been getting stronger and stronger and boys weaker, in almost all the ways that count academically . . . We have thrown the gender switch," says Christina Hoff Sommers, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of The War Against Boys. "What does it mean in the long run that we have females who are significantly more literate, significantly more educated than their male counterparts? It is likely to create a lot of social problems. This does not bode well for anyone."
"It is flat out an unhealthy social situation when the gender imbalance gets that bad," Tom Mortenson, of the DC-based Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, told the Washington Post. "Already, the lack of marriageable men is a hot topic of conversation among black women," he said. "They can't see it now, but that is going to happen for white women in the future. You don't create these marriageable men out of the blue at age 30 or 35."
"As a nation, we simply can't afford to have half of our population not developing the skill sets that we are going to need to go into the future," Susan Traiman, director of the Business Roundtable's education initiative, said. The group of company CEOs has set up its own inquiry into the problem.
Earlier this month, researchers from Harvard University, the University of Michigan and the United Negro College Fund also agreed to study the issue. The University of Georgia even tried to restore the balance by tweaking its admission system to favour men until the courts told them their version of affirmative action was illegal.
"We just can't figure out how to get more male applicants, and we're not going to turn students down on the basis on gender," said Michael L. Lomax, president of predominantly black, and now 70 per cent female, Dillard University in New Orleans. "I don't understand what is happening in the male community that is making education seem less attractive and less compelling." Researchers admit to being baffled about why the differences are so sharp, although surveys show that young men in high school tend to spend more time watching TV, socialising, or playing games, while their more motivated female counterparts study, do homework, talk to teachers outside class and do volunteer work.
"I hesitate to say this, but it seems that women have an orientation not only toward achievement, but also toward being good and pleasing others," Linda Sax, a UCLA education professor, who is writing a book about how women and men develop differently in college, told the Post. "I think that accounts for some of women's higher achievement rates." The higher proportions in deprived, ethnic minority communities suggests a link with young people's socialised perceptions that they cannot escape from the ghetto.
The extremely limited degree of social mobility in the US suggests that as a class such young men may be making a rational decision even if it is not in their individual interests. That women should find it easier to escape from such socialisation pressures perhaps reflects the success of the women's movement in giving them and their mothers a new and empowering sense of their potential worth. The sisterhood is paying dividends.