Conference turris::womannotes-v3

584.0. "Putting Women's Education to Work" by SEMA::NEWFIELD () Fri Dec 14 1990 12:11

this has been forwarded to our entire group but I didn't see it here and 
thought it would be of interest.  Well Worth reading.  - Sandy

[many forwards removed]

                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                        Date:     12-Dec-1990 01:32pm EST
                                        From:     VMSMail User KOCH "Les...223-6
  KOCH "Les...223-6080...MLO1-3/H20  12-Dec-1990 1327"@VALUES@MRGATE
  
TO:  VMSMail Distribution List ( _@VALUES::DOM_STAFF)

Subject: Attached...Putting Women's Education to Work Could Enrich U.S. Economy

	This is well worth reading.

	Les



          PUTTING WOMEN'S EDUCATION TO WORK COULD ENRICH U.S. ECONOMY

                                    by Clifford Adelman, Senior Associate 
                                    Office of Research, U.S. Dept. of Ed.
                                    in LOS ANGELES TIMES Opinion Section
                                                                10/28/90

          The economic pundits are fingering their worry beads and 
     pronouncing the doom of the United States' work force.  It will be 
     wholly eclipsed, say columnists in publications ranging from NEWSWEEK
     to Barron's, by those of other advanced post-industrial nations.  We 
     are unprepared for the upheavals and opportunities of a global economy,
     this school of thought would teach us, and ultimately our standard of
     living will fall.

          Reality teaches something else:  If we play it right, if economic
     justice can determine economic strategy, the women of the US will make
     the difference.  We will not be eclipsed.  If we play it right -- and
     just.

          The US will enter the next century with a remarkable edge over its
     global competitors.  US women, of all races, are the best educated and
     trained in the world.  They will constitute 64% of the new entrants to
     the work force over the next 10 years.  US women now comprise more
     than half of enrollees and degree recipients at all levels of higher
     education -- except the doctorate.  In contrast, women constitute only
     42% of higher education enrollees in what was West Germany and 34% in
     Japan.

          Labor market equity in the US, sadly, is another issue.  "Americans
     are missing something," says Kerstin Keen of Volvo.  Keen, who wrote a
     work-force education report on behalf of 24 major European corporations, 
     adds, "You're not utilizing women as well as you have prepared them."

          The most telling evidence of this unhappy paradox comes from the
     richest archive ever assembled on a generation of Americans -- the U.S.
     Department of Education's study of the high-school class of 1972.  The 
     22,600 men and women who initially participated in this survey are now 
     "thirtysomething," and represent the "critical knowledge workforce" of 
     the year 2001.  While there are dozens of stories in their records over 
     14 years, the most stunning is that of the women.

          Consider, first, the evidence of women's superior academic
     performance: 

        * Matching women and men who took equal amounts of math or science
          in high school, the mean class rank for women exceeded that for 
          men by 10 points.  That is:  Women beat men on conventionally 
          "male" turf.

        * The parents of the Class of '72 had lower educational aspirations
          for their daughters than they had for their sons.  The daughters
          themselves had lower educational aspirations than the sons.  Yet 
          a higher percentage of women than men entered college directly 
          from high school and won scholarships.

        * Once in college, women earned consistently higher grade-point
          averages than men, no matter what field they studied.  The 
          differences in performance are greatest in matching women and men 
          who majored in science, business and engineering, traditionally 
          "male" fields.

        * Achievement in college had a striking impact on the further
          educational plans of women in the class of '72.  When they were
          surveyed in 1976 and 1979, the proportion of those aspiring to
          graduate degrees vaulted over that of men.

          These data show that women's aspirations are less inflated than 
     men's, their plans more realistic, their focus on goals more intense.  
     They do what they say they will do.  Women "walk away from their 
     pasts" in late adolescence, Mary Belenky and her colleagues wrote in 
     WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING.  Further education supports their development.  
     And further education -- along with realistic plans and determination 
     -- is the basic currency of the world economy of the 21st century.

          The US economy, however, seems to discount all the evidence of 
     women's superior educational performance and commitment.  Between age 
     25 and 32, a substantially higher percentage of women from the Class of 
     '72 experienced genuine unemployment and underemployment than did men.  
     This experience was as stubbornly true for women who earned bachelor's 
     degrees as it was for those who earned no degree.  And at age 32, the 
     women who were college graduates tended to hold lower-paying and 
     traditionally female jobs -- for example, nursing and health technology 
     (11%), teaching (23%) and office or financial-services support (9%).

          The data are dry; the stories are not.  Janice, for example, a 
     former student of mine in a mass-communications course, was always 
     prepared, articulate and searching for knowledge beyond the course 
     syllabus.  She organized three or four of her peers to do a group 
     study that involved commuting to Manhattan to interview TV rating 
     service researchers.  She stood out in a class of 140.

          Janice graduated in 1978, with a major in allied health sciences.
     Three years later, she was passing out towels in a health club in
     downtown Washington, waiting for a job testing exercise equipment in
     Pennsylvania or one in a physical therapy clinic in New Jersey.  And
     out of work for two months before she started passing out towels.

          We're not talking here about the "glass ceiling," that fragile
     metaphor for the barrier between women in mangement careers and the
     executive suite.  We're talking about the entire labor market for jobs
     requiring more than a high school education, and Janice, a state college 
     graduate of some promise, was typical.

          Even more telling than the experience of unemployment or
     underemployment are earnings differences between women and men with
     the same undergraduate backgrounds.  If one restricts the women in
     this comparison to those without children -- the group with as many
     years of job experience as men -- the bottom line is devastating.  Our
     analysis of data, reported in 1986, indicates that men who majored in
     fine arts earned, on average, 15% more than the women; men who majored
     in foreign languages earned 54% more than the women, and men who
     majored in education earned 26% more than the women.  These fields are
     supposed to be female turf.

          In only four major occupations did the women college graduates earn
     more, on average, than men: chemist, economist, computer programmer and 
     purchasing agent -- all requiring solid backgrounds in mathematics.  In 
     five other major occupations -- accountant, editor/reporter, physician, 
     engineer, health technician -- differences in earning were insignificant.
     Appearance and dress are not keys to mobility in these occupations.  
     Despite messages from the GLAMOURS of this world, women achieve pay 
     equity in fields requiring substance more than fluff.

          Outside of these occupations, however, earnings differences in 
     favor of men ranged from 15% for pharmacists to 42% for retail sales 
     managers to 77% for architects.

          Despite this discouraging pattern, a much higher percentage of 
     women than men who attended college -- no matter what degree they 
     earned -- reported at age 32 that their learning and training were 
     relevant to their work.  In other words, women tend to use what they've 
     learned more than men.  Perceptive employers agree.  "Women come into 
     the workplace like immigrants," said Harold Tragash, Vice President 
     for Human Resources at Rorer, "determined to succeed on the basis of 
     what they know, not who they know."

          Tragash sees women more likely than men to "influence co-workers 
     from a technical knowledge base."  People who do that can change the
     knowledge with which we work, and that ability is critical to
     innovation in manufacturing, services and public administration.
     Innovations stemming from this supply of knowledge that women, in
     particular, bring to the job can make the difference in our economy 
     in the 21st century.

          It has been frequently observed that women make occupational 
     choices for more complex -- and personal -- reasons than do men, and 
     those reasons do not always include economic self-interest.  The 
     currently fashionable argument built on this observation is that 
     women will continue to perform well academically and then contribute 
     their knowledge to the workplace regardless of economic rewards.  
     This argument unwittingly condones both the exploitation of women 
     and economic stagnation.

          Why?  First, because it does not encourage anyone's educational
     achievement.  It certainly does not tell men, who have been slacking
     off in school and college for decades, that genuine knowledge counts.
     Second, because it does not encourage the sharing of knowledge for the
     good of any enterprise.  If we take women's contributions for granted
     at the same time as we treat men's knowledge as proprietary and
     rewardable, we have a half-economy.

          The rest of the world doesn't behave this way.  Other nations may 
     not educate as high a percentage of women beyond high school, but their
     economies do not leave a Janice passing out towels in a health club at
     age 25.

          Our national rhetoric holds that education is ultimately an 
     economic investment on behalf of the whole society.  The history of 
     the high school Class of 1972 strongly suggest that women can prove 
     that point.  The coming century is theirs to do so.  But if the market 
     rewarded women's attainments, everyone would benefit.  That's playing 
     it right -- and just.

    
    Thank you for entering that!
    
    Rachael