Young Women's College Enrollment Rates Drop, According to "College Enrollment and Work Activity of 2006 High School Graduates" Report

The United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released data on the post-graduation activities of 2006 high school graduates on April 26, 2007. This data indicated not only that women’s college enrollment rates have dropped, but also that while women currently enrolled in college are more likely to hold jobs than their male peers, female high school dropouts are actually less likely than their male counterparts to be employed. These results have far-reaching implications for young women’s current and future educational and economic status.

The 2006 data indicated that young women graduates enrolled in college at rates only slightly higher than those of young men (66 percent versus 65.5 percent). This indicated a marked change in enrollment rates from the previous year, when 70.4 percent of young women graduates enrolled in college, as compared with 66.5 percent of young men. Of students enrolled in college, women were more likely to be employed than men (45.4 percent of women enrolled in college were employed, as compared to 34.9 percent of men). Of high school graduates not enrolled in college, women and men were equally likely to be working (57.5 percent of men were employed versus 57 percent of women). Yet female high school dropouts were more likely to be unemployed than male dropouts, as 45.5 percent of male dropouts held jobs while only 31.4 percent of female dropouts worked.

Data for this report arose through the October 2006 Current Population Survey (CPS), conducted among sixty thousand U.S. households. To read the full report, visit www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/hsgec.pdf. For 2005 data, visit www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/hsgec_03242006.pdf.

The Feminist Majority Foundation recently released a new Handbook, which updates and expands the 1985 Handbook for Achieving Sex Equity through Education. Like the 1985 Handbook, this major review of research, progress, and continued challenges was developed collaboratively by two hundred authors and reviewers under the guidance of general editor Susan Klein.

Global education emerged in the 2007 edition as an area of increased attention with its own chapter as well as coverage in many other chapters. The 2007 edition also includes seven chapters devoted to gender equity strategies for diverse populations including African Americans; Latina/os; Asian and Pacific Island Americans; American Indians; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Students; Gifted Students; and People with Disabilities. Authors included data about traditionally underrepresented groups throughout the Handbook to the extent that such data was available.

In addition to a separate chapter on “Improving Gender Equity in Postsecondary Education,” eight of the ten content chapters include a focus on postsecondary students and faculty. These chapters cover mathematics; science, engineering, and technology; foreign language learning; visual arts and dance; athletics; sexuality education; career and technical education; and women’s and gender studies. In regard to gender equity in postsecondary education, the authors found progress and challenges:

• Female students earn higher percentages of master’s and bachelor’s degrees than their male peers and are less likely to drop out for academic reasons. However, women often earn lower shares of doctoral degrees than of bachelor’s degrees (even in traditionally “feminized” fields). They are paid less for their degrees than men and continue to encounter a “chilly climate” in the classroom.
• Women faculty members tend to hold non-tenure-track assistant professorships and lecturer positions, and are more likely to be hired by liberal arts or community colleges than by doctoral institutions. Particularly at doctoral institutions, women faculty members earn less than men for comparable work. Wherever they work, women faculty members contend with gendered assumptions about the nature of their teaching, their disciplinary choices, and their personal lives.
• Women are making slow gains in administrative positions, but have found particular success at community colleges (especially women of color). Women in administrative positions continue to encounter gendered assumptions about successful leadership, and women of color face particular discrimination. The authors call for changes in attitudes about leadership and hiring practices to address existing biases.

To obtain the Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity through Education, published by Lawrence Erlbaum (now a part of Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group), visit www.routledge.com or visit the Handbook webpage at www.feminist.org/education.

University of New Mexico Launches FemTAP: A Journal of Feminist Theory and Practice

In the summer of 2006, the University of New Mexico’s Women’s Studies program introduced its electronic journal, FemTAP: A Journal of Feminist Theory and Practice. The journal’s focus on praxis (the intersection between theory and practice) arose from its editors’ desire to examine how theoretical and practical work, so often viewed as conflicting models of feminism, interact and inform each other. 

The inaugural issue of FemTAP examines these intersections, focusing broadly on “Theory and Practice.”  Articles address the role of feminist activism and activist scholars; the disability arts movement’s relationship to feminist art; the cultural devaluation of “love” and its effect on black women writers; and the form and function of feminist “fictocriticism.” The second issue of FemTAP, slated for summer 2007, will focus on the topic of “Race, Gender, and Social Justice.”

Created and edited by students in the first graduate-level feminist theory course offered at the University of New Mexico, FemTAP is a refereed journal. As its mission statement elaborates, it functions according to egalitarian principles, both within its editorial board and in its selection of authors. FemTAP’s editors aim to create a forum for “emerging scholars” and “innovative ideas,” both within and outside of the academy.

Calls for papers and submission guidelines are available at the FemTAP website.  The editors also accept cover art submissions.

To read the e-journal, visit www.femtap.com/index.html.

Institute for Women's Policy Research Finds That the Gender Wage Gap Persists

In April 2007, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research released a fact sheet detailing the earnings ratios for men and women workers employed on a full-time basis. This report indicates that the annual wage ratio has remained essentially static for full-time, full-year workers since 2001, and that gains in closing the gap have “slowed considerably” in the past decade and a half.

In 2006, the median weekly earnings of women were 80.8 percent of those of men (this statistic includes employees who work full-time for part of the year). This was a relatively insignificant change from 2005, when the ratio was 81.0. In the previous year, the annual earnings ratio for full-time, full-year workers was 77.0 percent, a shift of .4 percentage points from the 2004 ratio of 76.6 (data for 2006 is not available). In 2001, this ratio jumped from 73.7 percent to 76.3 percent; but since that year, the ratio has remained relatively stagnant.

The fact sheet points out that while women’s salaries are no longer increasing in relation to men’s, both women and men are seeing actual decreases in net income. Women’s income, adjusted for inflation, saw a decrease of 1.3 percent in 2005 from the previous year; in the same year, men’s income fell 1.8 percent.

The fact sheet includes the Gender Wage Ratio for Full-Time Workers from 1955 to 2006. To view the full report, visit www.iwpr.org/pdf/C350.pdf.

New Issue of Ms. Magazine on Newsstands in April

The Spring 2007 issue of Ms. Magazine, available on April 24, includes an article by On Campus with Women’s Executive Editor, Caryn McTighe Musil, on the continuing challenges to equity faced by women in academia. In response to Drew Gilpin Faust’s appointment as the first woman president of Harvard University, Musil points out that although women have made progress in academic and faculty positions, they remain a “deviation” from the norm in the world of academic professionals.

Musil cites an array of recent data to support her observation, including the low percentage of women presidents heading doctoral institutions (14 percent), the time at which women’s salaries begin to fall behind men’s (after 5 years of employment in the academy), and the drop in hiring of women faculty in California following anti-affirmative-action legislation (a decrease of 30 percent in three years). Musil also examines the so-called “Baby Gap,” the term given to the observation that women who have children at a younger age tend to find less success in their academic careers.

In addition to Musil’s article, the Spring 2007 issue examines a range of timely topics, including Senator Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues’ responses to the threat of global warming; the disproportionate exposure to environmental pollutants experienced by economically disadvantaged communities in Syracuse, NY; and the experiences of Iraqi women as they continue to fight for equal rights and safety. Contributors include Laura Orlando, Linda Carty, Delthia Ricks, Bay Fang, and Martha Burk.

Ms. Magazine is published in partnership with the Feminist Majority Foundation. Issues are available on newsstands and through the Ms. Magazine website: www.msmagazine.com/spring2007/index.asp.