Right Wing Nation

Matt Johnson posted an article discussing the pay gap between men and women, and cites this Washington Post article:

But unless today’s women make some changes, that’s exactly what may happen. This goes beyond that conventional salary-disparity culprit, workplace discrimination, that was the subject of a Supreme Court ruling last week. If Funk and her female classmates don’t prosper as much as their male colleagues do, it will probably be because they didn’t dream rich enough dreams in choosing their major.

As they head into the working world, most of this year’s female college grads will never be equal to their male colleagues again. Last month, the American Association of University Women reported that in the first year after graduating, women working full-time make 20 percent less on average than their male classmates.

That’s certainly the fate of one young graduate from Tulane University. Laden with honors and boasting killer GRE scores, she is hoping to get hired as an intern in psychology, at a salary of about $30,000 a year. Her more business-oriented classmates — mostly male, as she recalls — are already making more than twice that.

[ . . . ]

In fact, what the AAUW report reveals is that, at almost every step of the way, women could make decisions that would keep them even with their male classmates. But they don’t.

The biggest decision any student keeping an eye on the bottom line can make is the choice of a major. According to the AAUW report, women who major in education make 60 percent of what female engineers make in their first year of work. But far more women still choose education over engineering.

[ . . . ]

Even within the same major, students can prepare for the jobs that pay better, if they care to. Teaching math (which many women choose) pays less than working for a computer company or going into business. And there is the choice of employer. Even when men and women pick the same majors and go into the same fields, the woman who chooses local government or nonprofit sectors starts out at a lower pay level than the guy sporting the next mortarboard who decides to get into the market economy or take a federal job. Liz Funk, to her credit, has already figured out that she’d be better off working as a staff writer at a magazine, earning benefits, than trying to make it out of college as a freelancer. But she’s an exception.

The situation in the first year out of college is bad enough, but the decisions women make in college set in motion a process that will accelerate until, 10 years after graduating, they are making only 69 percent of what men make. That’s because, if women earn less from the outset, it’s an easy choice as to who will bear the responsibility for child care and housekeeping when the time comes to start a family.

So according to this AAUW report, it’s not only the choice of major, but also the choice of employment. And at least one high achieving student apparently never considered salary:

By contrast, the Tulane psych major was surprised to learn what bankers earn 10 years out. “I guess I’ll end up making a lot less than half,” she concluded, laughing nervously. “It’s okay. It is what it is.”

As it happens, I had downloaded the degrees awarded in 2003-2004 data from NCES. I hadn’t seen the Post story nor Matt’s article. I was curious largely because of all the whining about "pay inequity" we’ve been hearing lately. So let’s look at the data and see if the data support the thesis of this Washington Post article (and AAUW report).

First, let’s see how degrees were awarded nationally by sex in 2003-2004:

Degree	Male	Female
Bachelor’s	42.54%	57.46%
Master’s	41.07%	58.93%
Doctorate	52.34%	47.66%

And here’s the chart:

So women were awarded more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men. The only degree awarded to more men than women was the doctorate. Whether this means women are more successful university students is another matter; we’d have to check the degree stats against matriculation stats, and see whether men or women have a higher degree completion rate. However, these data do show that women are in no way "disadvantaged" by American universities.

But what about the fields men and women choose? Is there a significant difference, as the Post article and AAUW report claims? First, let’s look at the most popular fields for all three degrees. Here is the top quintile for all three degrees, for both sexes:

Field of study	Bachelor’s	%-age
Business	613,772	34.01%
Communications/Journalism	175,896	9.75%
Social sciences and history	150,357	8.33%
Education	106,278	5.89%
English	94,311	5.23%
	Master’s:	%-age
Business	278,691	39.72%
Education	162,345	23.14%
Health professions and related clinical sciences	44,939	6.40%
Engineering and engineering technologies	35,197	5.02%
Public administration and social service professions	28,250	4.03%
	Doctorates:	%-age
Education	7,088	14.15%
Engineering and engineering technologies	5,981	11.94%
Biological and biomedical sciences	5,242	10.47%
Psychology	4,827	9.64%
Health professions and related clinical sciences	4,361	8.71%

Business, unsurprisingly, is the most popular field for the bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Also unsurprisingly, it is not a popular doctorate (the only reason to do a doctorate in business is to go into academia, presumably at a business school, and most people do business degrees because they want to work in the private sector). Whereas education is the fourth most popular bachelor’s field, it is behind only business at the master’s level–again, unsurprising, since many states require teachers to complete master’s degrees in education.

Before I continue, let me define a pragmatic field. A pragmatic field is one whose purpose is to prepare the student for gainful employment after graduation. Note the top quintile for bachelor’s degrees. What is surprising is that only two of the five fields (business and education) are pragmatic. (Since communications/journalism includes many fields, only one of which is journalism, and the rest non-pragmatic, I am not including it as a pragmatic field here.) This calls into question the frequently-heard complaint on your favorite university campus that students view education too pragmatically.

Note that all of the master’s level fields are pragmatic. (I suspect that many master’s program students are doing pragmatic degrees because they did worthless bachelor’s degrees).

When we look at the data aggregated by sex, however, we see a more revealing pattern. First, let’s look at the most popular bachelor’s fields (top quintile) for men and women:

Male:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Business	613,772	304,775	308,997	-0.69%
Social sciences and history	150,357	73,834	76,523	-1.79%
Engineering and engineering technologies	78,227	63,502	14,725	62.35%
Communications/Journalism	175,896	61,082	114,814	-30.55%
Computer and information sciences	59,488	44,585	14,903	49.90%
Female:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Business	613,772	304,775	308,997	-0.69%
Communications/Journalism	175,896	61,082	114,814	-30.55%
Education	106,278	22,802	83,476	-57.09%
Social sciences and history	150,357	73,834	76,523	-1.79%
English	94,311	28,903	65,408	-38.71%

Business is the most popular bachelor’s among both men and women (in fact, women get more bachelor’s degrees in business than men by 0.69%). I don’t find this surprising. We’ve seen more women in our classes every semester for years. Social sciences/history and communication/journalism appear in the top quintile for both sexes. Engineering and engineering technologies is the third most-popular bachelor’s field for men, but does not appear in the top quintile for women, and men get more bachelor’s degrees in engineering than women by 62.35%. Computer and information sciences is the fifth most popular field for men, but does not appear in the top quintile for women. Other than business, engineering and computer sciences are two of the highest paying fields in the job market.

Instead, women are getting bachelor’s degrees in education and English. Education is a pragamatic field, but not a well-paying one, compared to either engineering or computer sciences (as I’m sure educators will agree). English is not a pragmatic degree.

If we look at the top quintiles for both sexes in terms of proportion, that is, what fields do men overwhelmingly dominate, and vice versa, the data are even more interesting:

Disproportionately male:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Engineering and engineering technologies	78,227	63,502	14,725	62.35%
Computer and information sciences	59,488	44,585	14,903	49.90%
Philosophy and religious studies	11,152	7,046	4,106	26.36%
History	29,808	17,403	12,405	16.77%
Physical sciences and science technologies	17,983	10,476	7,507	16.51%
Disproportionately female:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Health professions and related clinical sciences	73,934	10,017	63,917	-72.90%
Public administration and social service professions	20,552	3,793	16,759	-63.09%
Education	106,278	22,802	83,476	-57.09%
Psychology	82,098	18,193	63,905	-55.68%
Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics	17,754	5,215	12,539	-41.25%

Three of the five fields that are disproportionately male are high-paying pragmatic fields. Three of the five fields that are disproportionately female are pragmatic fields (health professions, public administration, and education), but with significantly lower salaries (at the bachelor’s level) than the former three fields. The patterns are somewhat different at the master’s level:

Male:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Business	278,691	161,714	116,977	16.05%
Education	162,345	37,843	124,502	-53.38%
Engineering and engineering technologies	35,197	27,667	7,530	57.21%
Computer and information sciences and support services	20,143	13,868	6,275	37.70%
Health professions and related clinical sciences	44,939	9,670	35,269	-56.96%
Female:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Education	162,345	37,843	124,502	-53.38%
Business	278,691	161,714	116,977	16.05%
Health professions and related clinical sciences	44,939	9,670	35,269	-56.96%
Public administration and social service professions	28,250	7,001	21,249	-50.44%
Psychology	17,898	3,789	14,109	-57.66%

The most popular master’s level field for men was business. We see men choosing to get a degree in order to get a high paying job. The second most popular is education, and as I said above, this is not surprising, since many states require teachers to get master’s degrees in education. The remaining three fields in the top quintile for men lead to high paying jobs.

A great many women are getting MBAs, and also master’s degrees in health professions. These women are going for high salaries. But two of the fields in the top quintile, psychology and public adminstration, are notably less lucrative at the master’s level. When we look at the fields that are disproportionately represented by the sexes, as we did above, the data are even more interesting:

Disproportionately male:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Engineering and engineering technologies	35,197	27,667	7,530	57.21%
Computer and information sciences	20,143	13,868	6,275	37.70%
Philosophy and religious studies	1,578	972	606	23.19%
Physical sciences and science technologies	5,570	3,364	2,206	20.79%
Business	278,691	161,714	116,977	16.05%
Disproportionately female:
Field of study	Total	Males	Females	∆ (M-F)
Library science	6,015	1,151	4,864	-61.73%
Psychology	17,898	3,789	14,109	-57.66%
Health professions and related clinical sciences	44,939	9,670	35,269	-56.96%
Education	162,345	37,843	124,502	-53.38%
Public administration and social service professions	28,250	7,001	21,249	-50.44%

In the heavily male dominated fields, four of the five lead to high paying jobs. In the heavily female dominated fields, only one (health professions) leads to high salaries.

These Department of Education data support the same conclusions drawn by the Post article and the AAUW study. Whereas more women are getting degrees that will get them high paying jobs, men still show more interest in the fields of study that will get them high salaries than are women. To draw a crude generalization, men approach higher education more pragmatically than do women. The inevitable result, of course, is a so-called "pay inequity" between the sexes.

One thing, by the way, I find quite interesting: Why do men dominate so heavily in philosophy and religious studies degrees?