From what I have seen

[Homicidalheathen]

Business Briefly: Female grads expect less than men

Despite their greater numbers and better academic success in college, women about to graduate and enter the work force expect to make less money than males. That's one result from a Duquesne University survey of 752 college seniors. In the survey, 51 percent of female college seniors said that they expect to make $30,000 or less in the next year, compared with 35 percent of males. On the higher end, 12 percent of females expect to make more than $50,000, compared with 29 percent of males. Three years after graduation, the gap in expected income widens even further, with 59 percent of males expecting to make more than $50,000, versus 38 percent of females.

[Homicidalheathen]

Bob Herbert: Better jobs might mean better dads

12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 24, 2008

JOHN OVERMYER Bob Herbert is a columnist for The New York Times.

It's a dubious milestone. In 2006, for the first time in U.S. history, a majority of all births to women under 30 – 50.4 percent – were out of wedlock. Nearly 80 percent of births among black women were out of wedlock. That's the word from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

When John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, just 6 percent of all births were to unmarried women under 30. Since then, the percentages have risen across the ethnic spectrum. One-third of white, non-Hispanic women under 30 who gave birth in 2006 were unmarried. For Hispanics, it was 51 percent."Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important," Barack Obama said in remarks to the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on Father's Day. "And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation.

"But if we are honest with ourselves, we'll admit that too many fathers are missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it."

This is not a simple matter. Obviously, fathers should care for their children. But just wagging a finger and telling them sternly to step up to their responsibilities is about as effective as hollering at the wind.

Mr. Obama touched on this when he talked about the need for certain policy changes to make it easier for young men to fulfill their parental obligations – for example, offering tax incentives and job training to those making a sincere effort.

But a lot more is needed. One of the main reasons out-of-wedlock births have skyrocketed in recent decades is because it has become so difficult for poor and poorly educated young men to earn enough to support a family.

There is no doubt that a lot of clowns have fathered babies when they shouldn't have, and too many have irresponsibly taken a walk. But it's also incredibly difficult for many of these young people to find the kind of employment that makes raising a family feasible.

The U.S. economy does not come close to providing decent employment – enough jobs – for everyone who wants to work. At the lowest end of the economic ladder the crisis in employment is reminiscent of the Great Depression in its intensity.

It is in this group of poor and educationally deprived young people that out-of-wedlock births are highest.

Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies, put it this way in a research paper:

"The marriage rates of all native-born young males and young black males (22-32 years old) in the U.S. are strongly correlated with the annual earnings of these young men. The higher their annual earnings, the more likely they are to be married. Among native-born black males, those men with earnings over $60,000 were four times more likely to be married than their peers with annual earnings under $20,000.

"Unfortunately, the mean annual earnings of young men without four-year college degrees have plummeted substantially over the past 30 years, and declined again over the 2000-2007 period. Declining economic fortunes of young men without college degrees underlie the rise in out-of-wedlock child-bearing, and they are creating a new demographic nightmare for the nation."

Employment is the master key to the thriving families that Mr. Obama talked about and that are supposed to be the American ideal. If we can't achieve something close to full employment for the wider society, there is very little hope for those mired at the bottom.

Bob Herbert is a columnist for The New York Times.

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BETTER GRADES AND GREATER INCENTIVES HELP EXPLAIN WHY WOMEN OUTPACE MEN IN COLLEGE DEGREES

COLUMBUS , Ohio –- Girls have long gotten better grades than boys in all levels of school. But while at one time few women used those academic skills to get degrees, new research suggests that growing incentives are helping draw women to college in record numbers.

Claudia Buchmann

That helps explain why, since 1982, women have outpaced men in college graduation rates. In 2004, women received 58 percent of all bachelor's degrees in the United States, compared to only 35 percent in 1960.

“What has changed is that more women are now using their longstanding academic advantages and translating them into college degrees,” said Claudia Buchmann, co-author of the studies and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

“In the 1960s and 70s, girls were getting better grades, but many young women were not going to college, or they were dropping out of college to get married. Now the benefits of a college education are growing faster for women than they are for men, and women are taking advantage.”

Buchmann conducted the research with Thomas DiPrete, professor of sociology at Columbia University . Their results appear in the August 2006 issue of the American Sociological Review, and the February 2006 issue of Demography.

In the ASR article, the researchers examined data about students from around the country participating in the National Education Longitudinal Study. These were students born in 1973-74, who were college age in 1992. They were followed through 2000.

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“Women are more likely to graduate from college in large part because of their superior academic performance while in college.” Since the NELS data were collected, women have gained a lead in college enrollment, as well as graduation. In the fall of 2002, 55 percent of students enrolling in 4-year colleges were women.

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The researchers found that girls did better academically than boys in both 8th grade and in high school. Still, boys were just as likely as girls to enroll in a four-year college (52 percent of girls in the sample, compared to 51 percent of boys). But women were significantly more likely to graduate. Overall, 63 percent of women who enrolled in four-year colleges graduated, compared to 55 percent of men.

And the advantage for women was not because they were taking easier majors, or because women used different pathways than men to graduation, such as starting at two-year colleges, the findings showed.

“Women are more likely to graduate from college in large part because of their superior academic performance while in college,” she said.

Buchmann noted that since the NELS data were collected, women have gained a lead in college enrollment, as well as graduation. In the fall of 2002, 55 percent of students enrolling in 4-year colleges were women.

The news is not all bad for boys. The number of young men enrolling in and graduating from college has risen in the past 30 years, but very slowly compared to the women's rate.

Results from the ASR study showed, however, that boys from some types of families are more likely to be left behind. The male disadvantage in earning a college degree is largest for those who grew up in households with a low-educated or absent father.

But the findings showed that women from families with a low-educated or absent father had the biggest increase in college enrollment and graduation.

“There were cultural changes in the United States for women born in the late 1960s, particularly those with less educated parents,” she said. “They started to see greater benefits in a college education, and they took that opportunity.”

Buchmann said it is unclear why young men were less likely to complete college in families with absent or low-educated fathers, but young women were not.

“It may be that some of these men are under financial stress to help support their families and leave college to get a job. Or perhaps they believe they can still get a good-paying blue-collar job without a college degree. We can't tell from the data,” she said.

“But this is a small part of the overall picture. The biggest reason for the gender gap in the graduation rate is that women are doing better in college.”

So if girls have long done better academically than boys in elementary and high school, why has women's college graduation rate only surpassed men's in the past 25 years?

Much of it has to do with the incentives for women to get a college degree, Buchmann said.

In their Demography paper, Buchmann and DiPrete studied data from the March Current Population Survey from 1964 to 2002. The sample included men and women aged 25 to 34.

In this study, the researchers found that women are now getting more from a college degree than are men.

“For all the types of returns except personal earnings, women's returns to higher education have risen faster than those of men,” Buchmann said.

For example, the standard-of-living gain for those with a college degree compared to those with a high school diploma was 13 percent larger for women than for men between 1990 and 2000, results showed.

Even though they are still not paid as well as men, with a decline in gender discrimination in the workplace, college-educated women are paid better now than they have ever been. And the benefits go beyond pay.

Compared to women whose education ended after high school, those with college degrees have a higher probability of getting married and staying married, and marrying a highly educated man with a higher income. Moreover, they have a higher standard of living, and greater insurance against poverty, the study showed.

In addition, women who get divorced have a better standard of living if they have a college degree.

“The generation of women who were born in the 1960s were the first to see their mothers getting divorced and having few options in the labor market. Many of these women were likely thinking they wanted to avoid that situation by getting a college degree,” she said.

With all these greater incentives to earn a bachelor's degree, it is not surprising that more women are choosing to go to college, Buchmann said. And their better academic preparation helps ensure that they succeed at rates greater than that of men.

The findings explaining the growing gender gap in the college graduation rate are most applicable to whites. While the gap also occurs among minorities, the same explanations didn't hold up as well in these populations.

“We need to do more research to understand what is happening with minorities,” Buchmann said.

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