Mind the Gap
Civitas, 2 June 2009
More women today are opting for some form of higher education than are men: 49 per cent of women as against 37 per cent of men. Furthermore, when at university, women tend to outperform men: 64 per cent of female undergraduates obtain upper-seconds or firsts as against 60 per cent of male ones. Yet despite all that, women are still tending to end up in less well-paid job upon graduating. Why?
While the Harriet Harman’s of this world will long continue to attribute the earnings gap to ‘discrimination’ against women in the labour market, statistics contained in a report just published by the Higher Education Policy Institute suggest a different explanation for it.
First, despite being considerably outnumbered by women at university, fewer women get firsts than do men: 13 per cent of women as against 14 per cent of men.
Second, the more prestigious a university is, the greater will be its proportion of male students. In other words, men tend to attend better universities than women do whose degrees command a higher earnings premium. Thus, whereas the proportion of male to female students at Oxbridge is equal, the proportion of women at post-1992 universities exceeds that of men by six per cent.
Third, while women tend to opt for university courses that lead to jobs in teaching or the creative arts, men consistently outnumber women in courses in physical science, architecture, mathematics, computer science and engineering, subjects which are known to command a higher earnings premium than do the Humanities. In sum, women tend to choose courses that issue in less well-paying jobs.
Indeed, one of the findings of the report was that ‘women were more altruistic and valued their job environments more’ than men and also ‘less career driven and financially motivated’.
While the fact that male graduates tend to earn more than their female counterparts is, therefore, not something to worry about, unless you are a female chauvinist, the fact that greater numbers of women are entering higher education than are men is. For, in an age which attaches such a premium to educational qualifications as does ours, it means that an ever larger proportion of men will complete their formal education without the qualifications needed to earn a decent living. They will, therefore, be unable to support themselves, let alone a partner through her child-bearing years, who will often therefore be better off raising her children as a single mother. The result of this educational trend, therefore, will be a higher proportion of children being raised without fathers, with all the attendant negative social consequences.
Whether the great campaign to achieve gender equality over the last half century has on balance been a good thing is one on which I am often led to ponder, when I come across research findings such as those contained in the recent HEPI report. Often, I am led to conclude it has not been worth what have been its domestic opportunity costs.
But then what do I know? I am a man so any opinion of mine on this subject must be biased? Haven’t I learned that by now?
“I am a man so any opinion of mine on this subject must be biased?” Not only that, but a white man I bet….
I read so many of these well constructed arguments: pointing to the vacuum of logic within politically correct thinking; utterly wiping out the foundation stones, such that the flimsy tower of hysterical, fantastical clap trap tumbles in a moment: However, let us use logic to also conclude its not about logic is it? Otherwise, the victory would have been won long ago. Like others, this particular piece is rather like a wonderful cricket delivery, arcing and spinning, before hitting off stump…. But on the wrong wicket, potentially the wrong pitch.
The politically correct arguments play back their neat “one-two” with this type of argument. Agree with their base assumption – that perceived economic or power inequality is attributed to the legacy of white supremacists – and you’re fine. Argue against them, your denial of your ‘original sin’ is part of its perpetuation. It is practically the same logic as one gets with Christianity: you need to believe in order to see God in the world; you need to accept the innate racism and sexism of white man, to see how he exploits others. (“Ducking stool” springs to mind).
Of course, the truth is more this: Only relatively recently, heavy industries have been replaced by work in clean offices, equally accessible to men and women. People are diffusing into new roles. Consequently, there is now an apparent reduced requirement placed on the traditional family structure (man earns, woman tends to children) for the mutual benefit and survival chances of, particularly, women and their children.
Society has adjusted to permit women the choice of freedom without men, but rather than this social evolution having been seen as a transition for both sexes, then the reciprocal support given to men has been non-existent. More accurately, the accepted treatment of men has been legalised and vindictive scapegoating for the comparative austerity which went before. It was economics, the nature of economic-deriving activities and rarer resources that constrained women until relatively recently, not men. However, we all love to indulge our prejudices, don’t we now?
Today, men live shorter lives, suffer greater ill health, more mental health problems than women and are forced to work longer. Their rights within the family were lower than women to start with, but are now reduced to less again. We have Harman pushing for measures to reduce, again, men’s survival chances.
This is not an anti-woman rant, but a note that it was a shame that the socio-economic policies for our post-industrial age had not fallen to a more balanced, empathic and intelligent group of people than Labour. So many young men may not have committed suicide or been driven to violence, crime and various forms of self harm if they had. For anyone who doubts that the impact of political correctness is over-exaggerated, they might look a little closer at the unfolding world it is creating.