Gender Disparity in Academia Destined for Reversal

I have talked repeatedly here about how I don't think that genetics provide an adequate explanation of the gender disparity in science. I haven't mentioned that this gender disparity does not overly disturb me, primarily because I think that some time in the next 10 years this is going to get fixed in profound way. Here is some demographic evidence why women will soon surpass men in science and more generally in academia:

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.

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.

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. (Emphasis mine.)

Precisely because I think there is much evidence for genetics playing a large role in performance in science, I think this problem is going to rapidly take care of itself. In a generation, men are going to be the minority of college graduates, and I have every reason to believe the minority among scientists.

It is going to be somewhat interesting to see whether affirmative action policies will be enforced when the roles are reversed. Somehow I doubt it. Maybe then we can finally get to the business of judging the quality of scientists by their science and not their demographic characteristics.