Featured Issue

Youth Workforce Preparation: Gender Inequity

By: Jan Carroll
4-H/Youth Development Specialist

Gender is a socially constructed category. It both proscribes and constrains the

• life experiences,
• opportunities,
• access to resources, and
• power balance between women and men.

Men and women are socialized differently. They have different expectations about appropriate behavior and social roles, and they are held to different standards of behavior (Mead, 2001).

Gender affects girls during their education in preparation for the workforce and women's earnings in the workforce.

It is a fact that "many American workers do not have the skills needed to excel in the modern workplace" (National Women's Law Center, 2002). Staying in school is imperative for boys and girls as they grow, develop, and learn toward their future workplace opportunities.

The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings (2002) is a U.S. Census Bureau report examining the correlation between educational attainment and earnings. In the last 25 years, the earnings gap based on education level has increased significantly. For example, in 1975, workers with advanced degrees earned 1.8 times as much as high school graduates. That gap increased to 2.6 times in 1999.

There is also a substantial gap between men's and women's earnings, when considered by level of education attained. On average, men with a high school education will earn about $1.4 million between ages 25 and 64. Women with a high school education will earn about $1.0 million during the ages of 25 and 64. Men completing a bachelor's degree will earn about $2.5 million, and women completing a bachelor's degree will earn about $1.6 million. Men with a professional degree will earn about $4.8 million. Women with a professional degree will earn about $2.9 million and with a doctoral degree $2.5 million.

Women's earnings lag significantly behind those of men with the same educational attainment. The cumulated difference between men's and women's lifetime earnings amounts to about $350,000 for high school dropouts. For high school graduates, the difference increases to $450,000 and to almost $1 million for bachelor's degree holders. Men with professional degrees may earn almost $2 million more than women with the same degrees.

A report by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC), Title IX and Equal Opportunity in Vocational and Technical Education: A Promise Still Owed to the Nation's Young Women (2002, June) analyzes vocational and technical education in 12 states, 30 years after the enactment of Title IX. Title IX is the law that bars sex discrimination in all aspects of federally funded education. While substantial progress has been made, research indicates that sex segregation still exists in vocational education. Young men matriculate into programs that lead to higher-wage jobs and self-sufficiency, while young girls tend to enroll in programs that lead to much lower earning power.

"Young women and girls face widespread sex discrimination in high school vocational and technical education programs across the country. Pervasive sex segregation, sexual harassment in the classroom, discrimination in counseling and recruiting, and other gender-based bias are creating serious barriers to their future earning power,"according to the study.

As a result of these findings, NWLC filed 12 Petitions for Compliance Review - one in each regional office of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The petitions request Title IX investigations of -- and demand remedies for -- sex discrimination in vocational and technical education across the country.

Thirty years after Title IX, boys are still steered toward courses that lead to traditionally male, and higher paying, careers in technology and the trades, while girls are taking programs that lead to lower paying jobs such as cosmetology and child care. National patterns of sex segregation, based on data in the 12 states, show that 96% of cosmetology students are female, as are 87% of those enrolled in child care courses, and 86% of those enrolled in health aide preparation courses. Meanwhile, 90% of the students enrolled in carpentry, automotive, and plumbing are boys. The pattern of sex segregation is even worse in some states. For example, in Florida, 99% of the students in cosmetology are female, while 100% of the students taking plumbing are male. The pervasive sex segregation of female students into traditionally female programs severely compromises their future earning power. For example, cosmetologists earn a median hourly salary of $8.49 and child care workers earn a median hourly salary of $7.43. In contrast, students in the predominantly male, higher-wage careers can earn median hourly salaries of almost $20 as plumbers, electricians or mechanical drafters.

Beyond the data showing stark patterns of sex segregation, NWLC obtained additional information that illuminates the sex discrimination that girls face in vocational education. Some:

• teachers help male students get summer jobs but do not help female students;
• guidance counselors advise female students into cosmetology based on their lower expectations for them; and
• some schools fail to protect girls from sexual harassment.

Moreover, half of the states across the country have not met their legal duty to designate a Title IX coordinator to carry out the states' responsibilities under the law.

Young women enrolled in traditionally female programs often receive inferior educations. NWLC's study found that vocational schools in New York City were highly sex segregated and that the predominantly female schools, unlike the male schools, offered almost no advanced math or science courses. Special technology programs, like Cisco Networking Academies, which lead to industry certification in computer networking and jobs that pay between $42,000 and over $100,000 per year, were placed in the predominantly male schools, but were not available in the schools attended by young women.

While in high school, a greater number of girls from a wider variety of economic and social backgrounds take college entrance exams. But, they score slightly lower than boys on the verbal section of the SAT and significantly lower than boys on the math section. Then, while attending college, girls are more likely to get degrees in education (62% of the graduates are women), health sciences (82%), languages (70%), social sciences (55%), and arts (61%). Male graduates are over-represented in engineering (80%), mathematics (56%), physical sciences (63%), and computer and information systems (77%) (Women's Foundation of Colorado, 2001a).

Another publication from the Women's Foundation of Colorado (2001) reports that nationally the number of women completing degrees in computer science dropped by 23% from 1983 to 1993. Only 2.9% of directors at the 162 publicly owned companies in Silicon Valley are women. Seven percent of young men say they hope to major in computer science compared to 1% of young women. Interestingly, one way boys become interested in technology careers is through computer gaming. Girls lack the same advantage. Of the thousands of computer games, less than one hundred are designed for and marketed to girls.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research (2000) reports that, "Colorado women working full-time and year-round have higher median annual earnings than women in the United States as a whole ($26,422 and $25,370, respectively…)." In Colorado in 1997, women earned 74.5 cents for every dollar earned by men (national median wages of women were 73.5% of men's). In the West Region, Arizona is highest at 79% and Wyoming lowest at 62.8%.

Mead's (2001) white paper summarizes research documenting the reality that women and men are not significantly different from each other in ability. But, there are some "differences in skills that develop out of inequities in opportunity and experience for women and girls compared to men and boys (p. 19)." A tool for evaluation of a situation, Putting the Law on Your Side: A Guide for Women and Girls to Equal Opportunity in Career Education and Job Training (NWLC, 2000, September) was written to help female students recognize sex discrimination in career and technical education programs and to explain how they can use federal civil rights laws to protect their rights to equal opportunity is available at www.nwlc.org/pdf/ptl.pdf.

Amelioration of gender inequities in education and earnings is an important challenge for Successful Employment Transitions in Colorado.

Caiazza, A. B. (ed.) (2000). The Status of Women in Colorado. Washington, DC: Institute for Women's Policy Research.

Mead, M. (2001, June). Gender Matters: Funding Effective Programs for women and Girls. Retrieved January 21, 2003 from www.womenphil.org/newsletter1300/newsletter_show.htm?doc_id=78633.

National Women's Law Center (2002, June). Title IX and Equal Opportunity in Vocational and Technical Education: A Promise Still Owed to the Nation's Young Women. Retrieved January 21, 2003 from: www.nwlc.org/pdf/TitleIXCareerEducationReport.pdf

National Women's Law Center (2000, September). Putting the Law on Your Side: A Guide for Women and Girls to Equal Opportunity in Career Education and Job Training. Retrieved January 21, 2003 from: www.nwlc.org/pdf/ptl.pdf

U.S. Census Bureau (2002, July). The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life. Retrieved January 21, 2003 from: www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-210.pdf.

Women's Foundation of Colorado (2001a). The Status of Women and Girls in Colorado: Special Report - Girls. Denver, CO. Retrieved January 21, 2003, from www.wfco.org/pdf/Research%20&%20Publications/Girls_Report.pdf.

Women's Foundation of Colorado (2001b). The Status of Women and Girls in Colorado: Special Report - Women in Technology. Denver, CO. Retrieved January 21, 2003, from www.wfco.org/pdf/Research%20&%20Publications/Girls_Report.pdf).