Where have all the cowboys gone?
Are men in danger of being socially and economically marginalized? A new group at my alma mater that calls itself Men in Power has some concerns:
The group’s birth comes at a time when the recessionary ax has fallen especially hard on men. In April, the national unemployment rate for men was 10 percent compared with 7.6 percent for women, said Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan in Flint.
That gap is an “all-time historical high,” said Perry, who attributed it in part to a loss of jobs in male-dominated fields such as manufacturing and construction.
At the same time, he noted, women today hold about three out of the four jobs in education and health care — both stable or expanding job fields.
Future employment is also an issue, some experts say. Since 1981, women have collected 135 for every 100 bachelor’s degrees awarded to men, according to Perry. The gap is even wider at the master’s level, with women trumping men 150 to 100, he said.
–Sam
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8 Responses to “Where have all the cowboys gone?”
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The New York Times has a good article on this from several years ago, 2006 to be exact:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
A couple of thoughts from the article: ” But some scholars say the new emphasis on young men’s problems — recent magazine covers and talk shows describing a “boy crisis” — is misguided in a world where men still dominate the math-science axis, earn more money and wield more power than women.
“People keep asking me why this is such a hot topic, and I think it does go back to the ideas people carry in their heads,” said Sara Mead, the author of a report for Education Sector, a Washington policy center, that concluded that boys, especially young ones, were making progress on many measures. It suggested that the heightened concern might in part reflect some people’s nervousness about women’s achievement.
“The idea that girls could be ahead is so shocking that they think it must be a crisis for boys,” Ms. Mead said. “I’m troubled by this tone of crisis. Even if you control for the field they’re in, boys right out of college make more money than girls, so at the end of the day, is it grades and honors that matter, or something else the boys may be doing?”
More women may be going to college, graduating, and getting degrees, but they’re not necessarily getting “power” degrees or jobs. More men are also still getting doctoral degrees in science and engineering (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/figf-1.htm).
Also interesting, Men in Power says that “women today hold about three out of the four jobs in education and health care.” Worth noting, according to a March 2009 article, “Women today compose approximately 50 percent of medical school classes; however, despite these gains, women who enter academic medicine are less likely than men to be promoted or serve in leadership posts, the authors said. As of 2005, only 15 percent of full professors and 11 percent of department chairs were women.” (http://www.apa.org/releases/women-math.html) That’s supported anecdotally by a conversation I had last week with heart surgeon- he said they still aren’t really seeing more women opt into the advanced fields. For exactly the reason the article says: lifestyle choices and taking time off to have a kid or two. Which isn’t something a guy has to deal with. So that’s the rub, right? Sure, he can raise the family but he can’t physically carry the baby.
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