Women’s Advantage in Higher Education: Towards Understanding A Global Phenomenon

Women’s Advantage in Higher Education: TowardsUnderstanding A Global Phenomenon

Anne McDaniel*

Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Columbia University

Abstract

This article reviews prior and emerging research on the gender gap in higher education using acomparative lens. The article outlines historical trends in the gender gap in higher education,focusing on areas where women are advantaged and disadvantaged. It then reviews prior explana-tions for women’s increasing enrollment in college and continued sex segregation in fields ofstudy. It suggests three fruitful areas for future research to understand the cross-national femaleadvantage in the completion of college and university degrees: (1) the female advantage in school-ing; (2) male vulnerability to growing up in resource-deprived homes; and (3) changing incentivesfor men and women to complete higher education.

Introduction

Twenty years ago, Kelly and Slaughter’s (1991) book Women’s Higher Education in Com-parative Perspective noted ‘‘although women’s access to higher education has increasedworld wide, the promise of equality has, by and large, not been realized.’’ In a sharp con-trast, ‘‘It was a man’s world’’ was the subtitle of a section on higher education in the[United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) (2009)]Global Education Digest, an annual report on the status of education globally (p.15, empha-sis added by UNESCO). As the title suggests, there has been a dramatic and extraordinaryreversal in the gender gap in higher education: for the first time in history, women enrollin and complete more higher education than men in the majority of countries in theworld.

The reversal from a gender gap that once strongly favored males to one that nowfavors females is unprecedented, and sociological research is just beginning to grapplewith this striking trend. Educators, policymakers and the media are increasingly payingattention to the gender gap and there is a growing concern about male’s education in theUnited States, as demonstrated in popular books such as The War Against Boys: How Mis-guided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men (Sommers 2000) and The Trouble with Boys:A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents andEducators Must Do (Tyre 2008), Yet, women’s advantage in education, especially highereducation, is a global phenomenon and the literature on the female advantage wouldbenefit from using cross-national approach.

Understanding the remarkable growth in the amount of education women complete aswell as the changing gender gap in educational attainment in much of the world iscrucial. First, in order to make informed decisions about the future of schooling andeducational policies, national governments and policymakers must understand and respondto the challenges facing all citizens – male and female –when deciding how to investin or reform higher education. Second, the growing gender gap in education raises

Sociology Compass 6/7 (2012): 581–595, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2012.00477.x

ª 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

significant questions about future inequalities between women and men. Given theimportance of education for life outcomes, will the rapid growth of women’s educationalattainment relative to men’s produce major changes in other realms, such as the family,the labor market, or politics? Will women’s educational successes enable them to achieveequality in these realms? In this article, I describe historical trends in gender inequalitiesin higher education throughout the world. I then review the existing comparative, socio-logical research on gender and higher education and outline emerging areas of researchthat can provide a fresh, new perspective in understanding women’s advantage in highereducation globally.

Trends in the gender gap in higher education

During the 1970s, women lagged behind men in the number of tertiary (college or uni-versity) degrees completed in most nations. Since the 1980s, women began to reach par-ity with men, and in many cases surpassed men in terms of their educational attainment.Globally, almost half of all students currently enrolled in higher education are women,and women comprise more than 50 percent of tertiary students in a majority of countriesthroughout the world (UNESCO 2010). The female-favorable gender gap is even morestriking in industrialized countries. Today women comprise 55 percent of all studentsgraduating from higher education in the 27 member-nations of the European Union.Similarly, in the United States, women now comprise 57 percent of students enrolled incollege (Snyder and Dillow 2010). This is a striking reversal. Just 30 years ago, womencomprised less than half of the students completing higher education in Europe and theUnited States. Beginning in the 1980s, women’s enrollment surpassed men’s in NorthAmerica and Western Europe. In the 1990s, women’s enrollment surpassed men’s inLatin America and the Caribbean. In the last decade, women surpassed men in tertiaryenrollment in Central Asia. Currently, men and women are at parity in enrollment inEast Asia and the Pacific as well as Middle Eastern countries. Furthermore, this trend isprojected to continue. By 2025, OECD projects that the share of women enrolled inhigher education will reach 60 percent in many nations, and over 70 percent in the Uni-ted Kingdom and Austria (Vincent-Lancrin 2008).

Table 1 presents women’s share of tertiary enrollment (i.e. the number of womenenrolled as a percentage of all students) in 2008 for 131 countries. There is a clear patterntoward female advantage. Women’s share of higher education is greater than 51 percentin the majority of countries (71 out of 131). Women comprise, on average, 55 percentof tertiary students in North America and Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe,and Latin American and the Caribbean. What is perhaps more surprising is the fact thatwomen are approaching parity with men, and in many cases surpassed men in tertiaryenrollment in many Middle Eastern, Asian and African nations. For example, women’sshare of tertiary enrollment is greater than 55 percent in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, SouthAfrica, Tunisia and Mongolia, to name a few. But while there is a trend toward femaleadvantage, there is also great variability in the gender gap in tertiary enrollment. Forexample, in Chad women comprise 13 percent of tertiary students (the lowest percentagein the world).

Not only are women more likely to enroll in higher education than men in manycountries, they are also more likely to complete a tertiary degree. The trends in degreecompletion largely follow the trends in enrollment rates cross-nationally. Women are alsoreaching parity or surpassing men in graduate and professional degree completion in manycountries. In the United States, women are awarded 60 percent of Master’s degrees and

582 Women’s Advantage in Higher Education

ª 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Sociology Compass 6/7 (2012): 581–595, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2012.00477.x

Tab

le1.

The

num

ber

of

wom

enen

rolle

din

hig

her

educa

tion

and

STEM

fiel

ds

asa

per

centa

ge

of

allst

uden

ts,

2008

Hig

her

Ed

uca

tio

nSTEM

Field

sH

igh

er

Ed

uca

tio

nSTEM

Field

sH

igh

er

Ed

uca

tio

nSTEM

Field

s

Afr

ica

Asi

a,co

ntinued

Mid

dle

East

Alg

eria

57.4

44.9

Phili

ppin

es54.0

–A

fghan

ista

n20.4

–A

ngola

40.0

–Si

ngap

ore

48.5

34.3

Arm

enia

54.7

27.4

Ben

in20.0

–So

uth

Kore

a38.5

19.6

Aze

rbai

jan

44.3

43.3

Bots

wan

a53.2

–Th

aila

nd

54.0

–Iran

52.9

41.9

Burk

ina

Faso

32.7

14.0

Vie

tN

am48.8

–Irao

36.2

25.7

Buru

ndi

30.5

–Reg

ional

Ave

rage

44.8

25.5

Isra

el55.6

31.9

Cam

eroon

44.1

26.2

Jord

an51.3

41.8

Cen

tral

Afr

ican

Rep

26.4

–C

entr

alan

dEa

ste

rnEu

rope

Kaz

akhst

an58.2

–C

had

12.7

–A

lban

ia62.1

42.8

Kuw

ait

65.0

–C

ongo,

Dem

.Rep

.25.9

–A

ust

ria

53.3

29.2

Kyr

gyz

stan

57.1

40.2

CO

ted’lv

oire

33.3

16.2

Bel

arus

57.8

31.2

Leban

on

54.7

39.5

Eritre

a25.0

12.3

Cro

atia

54.1

31.7

Om

an51.5

43.8

Ethio

pia

23.8

18.9

Cze

chRep

.55.5

28.4

Paki

stan

44.5

17.6

Ghan

a34.2

–Es

tonia

61.7

31.5

SaudiA

rabia

61.6

48.7

Guin

ea24.4

19.6

Geo

rgia

54.1

43.1

Tajik

ista

n28.2

–K

enya

41.0

–H

ungar

y58.0

22.8

United

Ara

bEm

ira

60.2

–Le

soth

o55.2

53.7

Latv

ia64.4

24.4

Uzb

ekis

tan

39.9

24.0

Liber

ia43.0

–Li

thuan

ia59.9

25.5

Yem

en28.7

–Li

bya

51.0

–M

aced

onia

53.2

35.4

Reg

ional

Ave

rage

48.1

35.5

Mad

agas

car

47.2

26.7

Mold

ova

58.3

–M

alaw

i33.6

–Po

land

57.4

31.2

Nort

hA

mer

ica

and

Wes

tern

Euro

pe

Mal

i31.1

14.5

Rom

ania

56.3

–A

ust

ralia

55.3

28.4

Mau

rita

nia

25.6

–Russ

ian

Fed.

56.8

–Bel

giu

m55.0

24.9

Mau

ritius

53.3

–Sl

ova

kia

60.3

32.5

Bulg

aria

55.3

34.3

Moza

mbiq

ue

33.1

16.1

Slove

nia

58.1

27.2

Can

ada

57.7

–N

amib

ia56.8

43.2

Turk

ey43.1

–D

enm

ark

57.6

34.4

Nig

er29.6

–U

krai

ne

54.4

–Fi

nla

nd

54.2

25.2

Nig

eria

40.7

–Reg

ional

Ave

rage

56.8

31.2

Fran

ce55.2

30.0

Rw

anda

39.0

–G

erm

any

49.6

26.2

Women’s Advantage in Higher Education 583


Tab

le1.

(Continued

) Hig

her

Ed

uca

tio

nSTEM

Field

sH

igh

er

Ed

uca

tio

nSTEM

Field

sH

igh

er

Ed

uca

tio

nSTEM

Field

s

Seneg

al35.3

–La

tin

Am

eric

aan

dth

eC

arib

bea

nG

reec

e50.4

30.9

Sier

raLe

one

29.0

–A

rgen

tina

59.7

40.2

Irel

and

54.2

28.9

South

Afr

ica

55.1

–Bra

zil

56.0

29.2

Ital

y57.2

36.0

Swaz

iland

49.8

26.7

Boliv

ia45.0

–N

ether

lands

51.7

16.5

Tanza

nia

32.3

19.2

Chile

49.4

20.5

New

Zeal

and

58.4

36.6

Tunis

ia58.8

–C

olo

mbia

49.1

34.1

Norw

ay60.8

31.4

Ugan

da

44.3

20.5

Cost

aRic

a54.3

31.1

Port

ugal

54.0

31.0

Zam

bia

32.0

–C

uba

61.4

36.2

Spai

n54.0

30.3

Zim

bab

we

39.0

–D

om

inic

anRep

.61.3

–Sw

eden

60.3

34.0

Reg

ional

Ave

rage

37.9

24.9

Ecuad

or

52.9

27.2

Switze

rlan

d49.3

21.7

ElSa

lvad

or

54.6

30.6

United

Kin

gdom

57.2

30.1

Asi

aG

uat

emal

a50.8

–U

nited

Stat

es57.2

31.0

Ban

gla

des

h35.0

26.2

Hondura

s60.0

–R

egio

nal

Ave

rage

55.2

29.6

Bhuta

n34.7

–M

exic

o50.3

30.6

World

Ave

rage

48.2

30.0

Cam

bodia

34.4

10.3

Nic

arag

ua

52.0

–C

hin

a48.8

–Pa

nam

a60.6

37.2

India

39.1

–Pa

raguay

56.7

–In

dones

ia47.4

–Pe

ru50.9

–Ja

pan

46.0

13.6

Trin

idad

and

Tobag

o59.0

32.6

Lao

43.2

22.6

Uru

guay

62.9

43.7

Mal

aysi

a55.8

39.3

Ven

ezuel

a62.1

37.7

Mongolia

60.9

38.5

Reg

ional

Ave

rage

55.4

33.1

Nep

al27.6

–

Sourc

e:U

NES

CO

2010



51 percent of doctoral degrees (Snyder 2010). UNESCO (2010) reports that across coun-tries, 56 percent of students enrolled in master’s degree programs are women. At thePhD level, women comprise 44 percent of students. Trends suggest that in the comingdecades women will reach parity with men or surpass them in doctoral programs glob-ally.

Where women lag behind men: Elite institutions and fields of study

Women’s advantage in enrollment and completion of higher education is striking, butthat certainly does not mean that women outpace men in all realms of higher education.Men remain more likely than women to enroll in the most prestigious and selective uni-versities in some countries, although cross-national data do not allow for a thoroughexamination of gender inequalities by type of institution for a wide range of countries. Inthe United States, women are more likely to enter community colleges and less selectiveuniversities than men, which contributes to women’s overall advantage in the completionof bachelor’s degrees (Carbonaro et al. 2011; Jacobs 1996). Men also have a slight advan-tage over women in enrolling in highly-selective universities such as Ivy League collegesor flagship state universities (Mann and DiPrete 2011). In Israel, women are more likelyto enter less selective colleges than more selective universities, and this is in part becausecolleges train students for the female-dominated teaching profession (Shavit et al. 2007).

The findings in Israel point to the fact that many fields of study (or college majors)remain highly segregated by gender. More women than men enrolled in the fields ofeducation, nursing and social science and more men than women enrolled in the fields ofscience and engineering (UNESCO 2010). Patterns of sex-segregation have persisted overtime despite women’s inroads in higher education. Bradley (2000) reports that from 1965to 1990, there was little change in women’s participation in science, technology, engi-neering and math (STEM) majors across countries.

Table 1 also presents women’s share of STEM degrees in 81 countries. Currently,women currently earn 30 percent of STEM degrees, on average. Women’s share ofSTEM degrees ranges from a low of 10 percent in Cambodia (where women comprise34 percent of tertiary students) to a high of 54 percent in Lesotho (where women com-prise 56 percent of tertiary students). Lesotho is the only country where women havesurpassed men in the number of STEM degrees earned. On average, women earn 38 per-cent of science degrees and only 22 percent of engineering and technology degrees.

While men remain more likely to enter STEM fields in general, women are beginningto make progress in a few science fields. In the U.S., women have surpassed men in lifescience degrees (such as biology or earth science), but remain behind men in the fields ofmath, physical science and engineering (Snyder 2010).

Prior explanations for cross-national gender inequalities in higher education

Prior research on gender inequalities in higher education is dominated by bodies ofresearch that focus either on: (1) reasons why girls and women do not participate in orhave access to education (Kelly and Slaughter 1991; King and Hill 1993; Stromquist1989), (2) how the expansion of higher education increases women’s participation inhigher education (Bradley and Ramirez 1996; Schofer and Meyer 2005) or (3) why sexsegregation in field of study persists over time (Charles and Bradley 2002, 2009).The vast majority of this research was either conducted before women surpassed menin higher education or does not focus on women’s advantage in higher education



enrollment and completion. I will focus on what we can learn about the female-favorablegender gap in higher education from prior work on educational expansion and sex segre-gation.

Neoinstitutional theories and the effects of educational expansion

Over the course of the 20th century, mass education became a worldwide phenomenon.Neoinstitutional theorists argue that this occurred because education is a key componentof the nation-state. If nations want to appear modern and be a part of the global econ-omy, then nations will provide schooling for all citizens (Meyer 1977; Schofer and Meyer2005). International organizations pushed education as a human right, and influencednations to include the education as a citizen’s right in constitutions and national laws(Boli-Bennett and Meyer 1978; Meyer et al. 1992). International organizations alsoplayed a key role in the inclusion of women in higher education.

International governmental organizations (IGOs) and international non-governmentalorganizations (INGOs) promote women’s rights and equal access to education. IGOs, likethe United Nations and World Bank, regularly implement programs to promote genderequity in education. It is estimated that approximately 40 percent of all INGOs includewomen’s education as one of their missions or activities (Berkovitch and Bradley 1999).Countries that are involved in IGOs and INGOs are more likely to value gender equityin education. Research finds that national involvement in the international organizationsincreases women’s share of education. Schofer and Meyer (2005) demonstrated thatfemale enrollment expanded more rapidly from 1970 to 2000 in countries with greatermemberships in INGOs.

In general, the expansion of education diminishes the importance of ascribed character-istics, such as gender, socioeconomic or minority status, and allows greater access tohigher education for all individuals in a society (Meyer et al. 1992, 1997; Schofer andMeyer 2005; Shavit et al. 2007). Many case studies highlight the link between educa-tional expansion and educational opportunities for females at the primary, secondary andtertiary level. For example, Post’s (1994) study of Hong Kong demonstrated that extend-ing compulsory education by three years significantly impacted girls’ secondary schoolattendance. In Bangladesh, Mushtaque et al. (2003) found a similar positive influence ongirls’ education when educational policies provided greater access to primary education.In countries where higher education expanded quickly, women increased their share ofeducation at more rapid rates, in many cases surpassing men (Schofer and Meyer 2005;Shavit et al. 2007). Of course, it is important to note that the massive growth in highereducation has been fueled, in part, by the incorporation of women into higher education(Baker and LeTendre 2005), and there is likely a reciprocal relationship between educa-tional expansion and women’s incorporation. In sum, neo-institutionalist research oneducational expansion highlights the importance of international organizations that pro-moted women’s participation in education and women’s access to spaces higher educationas crucial for women’s increasing educational attainment across countries.

Gender role ideologies

Another body of research on gender and higher education focuses on the role of genderideologies in shaping women’s educational opportunities. More equitable gender ideolo-gies and reduced gender discrimination have given women greater freedom in the rolesthey choose: from mother to student to worker. In recent decades, there have been large



changes in gender-role attitudes across countries with growing support for equalitybetween men and women and less support for traditional gender roles (Inglehart andNorris 2003). The gender role ideologies of individuals can shape a variety of behaviors –from childbearing (Kaufman 2000) to voting (Brooks 2000). Furthermore, the collectivegender role ideology of a nation can impact individuals’ outcomes. For example, moreegalitarian nations have a positive influence on women’s participation in politics (Paxtonand Kunovich 2003) and the equitable division of housework within homes (Fuwa2004). The rise in gender egalitarian ideologies has also boosted women’s education.Bradley and Ramirez (1996) argued that the spread of more egalitarian gender ideologiesacross countries was a driving force behind women’s increasing educational attainmentfrom the 1960s to 1980s. Across industrialized countries, McDaniel (2010) finds thatamong 15 year-olds in 30 European countries, girls are more likely to expect to completehigher education than boys, and the gender gap is larger in nations that hold more genderegalitarian ideologies.

While gender egalitarian ideologies increase women’s participation in education andexpectations of future educational completion, scholars that study sex segregationin fields of study also find that egalitarian gender ideologies only take women so far.Gender egalitarian attitudes reduce sex segregation in fields in study to some degree,but, by and large, sex segregation persists (Charles and Bradley 2002, 2009). Somegender scholars argue that this is due to pervasive gender essentialist ideologies, or asEngland (2010) states ‘‘the notion that men and women are innately and fundamentallydifferent in interests and skills’’ (p.150; see also Charles and Bradley 2002, 2009;Ridgeway 2009). Gender role ideologies undoubtedly play an important role in genderinequalities in higher education, and can influence whether individuals enter highereducation and the fields they study.

New explanations for the female advantage in higher education

Prior work on gender inequalities in higher education focused largely on the effects ofeducational expansion and gender ideologies on women’s education. But, very littleresearch explicitly examines women’s cross-national advantage in higher education becausethis is a relatively new phenomenon. In the next section I outline future directions forscholars studying the global female advantage in higher education. I focus on the growingbody of literature on women’s advantage in college completion in the United States andwhen possible, the emerging literature on the topic in other countries. Fruitful areas forexploration include the female advantage in schooling, male’s vulnerability to resourcedeficits, and the changing incentives for women and men to complete higher education.

The female advantage in schooling

Research in the United States demonstrates that females outperform and outpace males atalmost every point in the educational career. Girls have long obtained better grades inschools in all subjects, take more rigorous high school courses, have fewer behavioralproblems and learning disabilities, better social skills and classroom behavior, highereducational expectations and are less likely to drop out of high school than boys(Buchmann et al. 2008). Buchmann and DiPrete (2006) find that female’s superioracademic performance is an important factor that helps explain their higher college com-pletion rates compared to males. Standardized achievement tests are one arena wheremales outperform females, but only on math tests. Females outperform males on reading



tests and gender differences on science tests are small (Hedges and Nowell 1995), butachievement test scores have little effect on overall college completion rates.

Less is known about gender differences in academic performance across countries,largely because the U.S. collects better data on longitudinal educational processes inschools and colleges than most other countries. Excellent data sources of cross-nationalstudent achievement exist in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)and the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), but these datasets arecross-sectional so we are unable to follow students from secondary school throughhigher education in order to tease our how academic achievement affects the comple-tion of tertiary degrees across countries. However, they are useful in showing that gen-der gaps on standardized achievement tests are similar to those in the U.S. Acrosscountries, males outscore females on math tests and females outscore boys on readingtests across countries (Marks 2008; OECD 2009), but there are important variations inthe size of the gender gaps on achievement tests (Penner 2008). Cross-national researchalso suggests that females outperform boys on other educational measures. Females havemore positive attitudes towards school, spend more time on homework and have highereducational expectations (McDaniel 2010; Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment 2009). In developing countries, Grant and Behrman (2010) find that gen-der gaps increasingly favor, not discriminate against, girls in elementary and secondaryschool. Ortega (2008) finds that even though females generally have lower completionrates than males in secondary education, if a female graduates from secondary schoolshe is more likely to continue on to higher education than a male in many countries.

It is clear that there are important gender differences in academic performance that leadto woman’s high rates of university completion, but it is less clear why women outper-form men in schools. The construction of gender identity may play an important role inthe gender gap in higher education. Masculine identities value physical dominance, ath-letic prowess, and in some cases, an opposition toward school (MacLeod 1995; Thorne1993; Willis 1981), while feminine identities value academic success and deference torules and authority (Mickelson 1989). These identities can encourage girls to do well inschool, while simultaneously label and marginalize boys who are attached to or investedin schools (Kimmel 2008; Morris 2008).

Sociologists have a firm grasp on how females’ superior academic performance affectseducational outcomes in the United States (for reviews, see Buchmann et al. 2008; Mor-ris 2011), and there is evidence that similar patterns exist across countries. Yet, with theexception of Willis’ (1981) study, conducted in England, the majority of sociologistsunderstanding of gender identity and its connection to the female advantage in schoolingare based in the United States. It is possible that other societies construct masculinity insuch a way that it does not preclude high academic achievement for males. In addition,better longitudinal cross-national data need to be collected, as it could prove important inunderstanding how the female advantage in schooling plays a role in cross-national gendergaps in higher education.

Male vulnerability to resource deficits

An emerging line of research on gender differences in educational outcomes demonstratesthat males are more vulnerable than females to growing up in homes with absent fathersor less-educated parents. This vulnerability, which is attributed to the lack of resourcesavailable in one-parent homes or less-educated parents, contributes to their lower educa-tional attainment compared to females (Buchmann and DiPrete 2006; DiPrete and



McDaniel 2011; Legewie and DiPrete 2009). Gender-role socialization theories argue thatgirls look to their mothers while boys look to their fathers when developing educationalaspirations (Rosen and Aneshensel 1978). DiPrete and colleagues argue that a ‘‘family-structure’’ version of gender-role socialization exists, which holds that because fathers arecrucial role models for their sons, boys differentially suffer from the absence of a father inthe household. Buchmann and DiPrete (2006) found evidence for this in the UnitedStates. Men’s disadvantage in college completion emerged over time in part due to thefact that men from homes with absent fathers are less likely to complete college than theirsimilarly situated female counterparts. Additionally, boys from absent father homes havelower achievement scores compared to boys with two parents in the home and morebehavioral problems in elementary and middle school in the United States (DiPrete andMcDaniel 2011). McDaniel (2011) found that among 25 to 34 year olds in a sample ofEuropean countries, both men and women are less likely to complete a university degreeif their father was not living in their home during adolescence, but the negative effect offather absence is much stronger for men than women.

In addition to men being more vulnerable to having an absent father, there is evidencethat parents’ education and social class differently affects the educational outcomes of sonsand daughters. The female-favorable gender gap in education the U.S. is larger amongworking class families (Bozick and DeLuca 2005; King 2000) and the lowest-educatedfamilies (fathers with a high school education or less (Buchmann and DiPrete 2006).Legewie and DiPrete (2009) replicated this finding in Germany. Among the Germancohort born between 1960 and 1982, females either caught up with or overtook males ineducational attainment in families with low-educated fathers. In Norway, daughters earna greater benefit in terms of education than sons from having more educated mothers(Ermisch and Pronzato 2009). Across seven European countries, Breen et al. (2010) foundthat daughters attain more education than sons in families where fathers are farm ownersor self-employed (versus fathers working in higher-class professional positions or lower-class skilled or unskilled manual occupations).1

While there is growing evidence that males are more negatively affected than femalesby growing up in a resource-poor environment, we do not have a clear understanding ofwhy this occurs. Families play a crucial role in a child’s educational success, from provid-ing socioeconomic and cultural resources and also provide a class background for childrenthan shapes their interactions with the world. Parents interact with sons and daughters indifferent ways and children are socialized according to their gender, and there is evidencethat this varies by class background (Lareau 1989; Raley and Bianchi 2006). It is less clearhow families with fewer resources or single-parent families socialize, support or invest insons and daughters in different ways, and why this would affect educational outcomes.But to understand the growing female advantage in higher education, future work willneed to pay attention to these family processes. Comparative research could shed light onif male vulnerability to resource deficits is universal across countries, or if there are coun-tries or cultures that are better able to protect males from the negative effects of growingup in a resource-poor environment.

Rising incentives to complete education and the demand for educated workers

Education is often thought of as an investment decision – both for individuals and coun-tries. For countries, investing in education increases economic and cultural advancement,especially in terms of worker productivity and economic output (Schultz 1961). For indi-viduals, investing in education increases human capital, and the decision to invest in edu-



cation is based on perceived returns to education (Becker 1991). Yet, men’s and women’sincentives to pursue higher education differ, and these differences can shed light intomen’s and women’s rates of tertiary completion.

Wage returns provide a large incentive to complete higher education. In the UnitedStates, women’s wage returns to higher education have risen in recent decades, but men’sreturns have risen at a more rapid rate (Averett & Burton 1996; Charles and Luoh 2003).Therefore, wage returns cannot explain women’s advantage in college completion overmen in the U.S. Less is known about trends in men’s and women’s wage returns in othercountries and how they might contribute to the gender gap in higher education. Oneway to estimate the importance of a completing higher education is to consider thedemand for educated male and female workers in the labor market, and how the struc-ture of the labor market shapes men’s and women’s employment opportunities.

Different economic sectors within a labor market demand different levels of educatedworkers (Brinton 1993; Walters 1986). In Taiwan and Korea, Brinton et al. (1995) foundthat labor market demand for educated workers and the availability of educated, maleworkers shaped women’s employment rates. In Korea, there was an adequate supply ofeducated male workers, so educated women were more likely to be unemployed. In con-trast, the Taiwanese labor market did not have a large enough supply of educated maleworkers, so educated women experienced higher employment rates. The labor marketcan shape the demand for workers, but also provide incentives for men and women tocomplete college, or not.

McDaniel (2011) finds that in European countries with a larger proportion of the labormarket working in the industrial sector and belonging to unions, men are less likely tocomplete higher education than women. Countries with large industrial sectors providehigh-paying manufacturing jobs that do not require a college education, and men domi-nate these jobs. Additionally, these occupations are often part of male-dominated tradeunions that not only provide high wages and stable employment but also collectivelyorganize and bargain. The labor market can provide incentives for men not to pursuehigher education by providing well-compensated alternatives to employment that requiresa tertiary degree, while excluding women from those opportunities. Instead, women aremore likely to earn tertiary degrees and enter the service sector in clerical or professionaloccupations (Charles and Grusky 2004; McDaniel 2011).

But, educational returns are not limited to financial returns or labor market opportuni-ties, and this is especially true for women’s education. Women with a college degree inthe U.S. are more likely to marry, less likely to divorce, have fewer children, and are lesslikely to be single parents than women without a college degree (Qian and Preston 1993;Teachman 2002). Women in the United States have greater incentives than men to pur-sue higher education because having a college degree better protects women fromdivorce and poverty, and ensures them a higher standard of living (DiPrete and Buch-mann 2006). Similar processes may be occurring in other countries, as dramatic changesin marriage and family relationships could provide women with greater incentives tocomplete higher education.

In most countries, pursuing higher education delays the age of marriage and childbirthfor women because completing a university degree interferes with the prime stage of thelife course for childbearing (Blossfeld 1995; Corijn and Klijzing 2001). As the average ageof marriage for women rises and fertility rates fall, women are more able to devote theirtime to education and the labor market (Brinton et al. 1995). The invention andwidespread use of the birth control pill gave women in the U.S. more control over theirfertility, and this control has been a driving force behind their growing educational



attainment (Goldin and Katz 2002). Across a wide range of countries, women aredelaying marriage to later ages, fertility rates are rapidly declining and rates of divorce andcohabitation are rising (Corijn and Klijzing 2001; Lesthaeghe 1983; Mason and Jensen1995). These changes are no doubt related to women’s rising educational attainment andprovided women with greater incentives to complete a degree. However, research hasyet to disentangle how these processes work across countries; that is, whether changes inmarriage and family roles caused women to pursue higher education at higher rates or ifwomen pursued higher education causing marriage and family roles to shift. There islikely a complex, reciprocal relationship between these factors. Future research shouldaim parse out these relationships and elucidate if wage and non-wage returns to educationhave risen in other countries for women as they have in the United States.

Gender gaps after higher education: will women catch up to men?

Women’s advantage in higher education could lead to positive strides for women inrealms outside of education. If women continue to outpace men in university enrollmentand completion, there may be dramatic changes in the families, marriage markets, thelabor market and political system. For example, relationships between men and womenmay become more egalitarian in terms of housework and parenting (Fuwa 2004; Sayeret al. 2004). Gender gaps in wages may decrease while women’s participation in the labormarket and politics may increase (Bernhardt et al. 1995; Paxton and Kunovich 2003;Pettit and Hook 2005).

However, women’s progress within education has been uneven as women continue toenter less-prestigious fields of study and careers than men, and gender equality outside ofeducation seems to have stalled (for a review, see England 2010). Despite women’sadvantage in higher education, a male-favorable gender wage gap persists across countries(Blau and Kahn 2003). In the U.S., men earn more money than women in the labormarket, even if they have similar socioeconomic backgrounds, educational achievementand college majors (Bobbitt-Zeher 2007). Women face many obstacles that prevent themfrom catching up to men in the labor as they continue to do the majority of the house-work and childrearing as well as face penalties in the workplace for having children(Budig and England 2001; Fuwa 2004; Sayer et al. 2004). The coming decades shouldprove informative as to whether women will be able translate their advantage in highereducation to greater equality more generally. It will also be important to pay attention tohow men’s lower rates of college completion affect their life outcomes.

Moving research forward

This review of the gender gap in higher education demonstrates that the female advan-tage in higher education is a global phenomenon and argues that is must be studied asone. It reviews prior explanations for the cross-national gender gap in higher educationand outline several new and emerging explanations for the female advantage in highereducation. As we have seen, much work needs to be done to reconcile these differentperspectives and to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework that can explain thefemale-favorable gender gap in higher education.

In this review, I have suggested fruitful areas for future research, namely the femaleadvantage in schooling, male’s vulnerability to resource deficits and changing incentivesto pursuing higher education. The vast amount of comparative work on gender inequali-ties in higher education focuses on exclusively on women’s education (exceptions include



Breen et al. 2010; Legewie and DiPrete 2009; McDaniel 2011), but to fully understandwomen’s advantage in higher education completion we need to understand the educa-tional processes of men and women. As we move forward, scholars should seek a moreholistic view of gender inequality – one that does not exclusively focus on only womenor men, but both genders. In doing so, we can improve our understanding of the genderinequalities in education more generally.

In order to create a more comprehensive theoretical framework to understand the gen-der gap in higher education, scholars need to consider how gender stratification operates.Gender is a pervasive and persistent social structure that impacts individuals and institutions(Martin 2004; Risman 2004). Brinton (1993) argues that gender stratification is systemicand results from a sequence of choices made by individuals as well as the structuralconstraints placed on individuals by institutions. Comparative research provides a usefullens from which to view the impact of individual’s decisions within structural contexts orinstitutions as well as refine theories developed in the United States (Ragin 1994). There-fore, future research should interrogate gender gaps in higher education globally by focus-ing on both individual’s decisions and national characteristics that shape or constrain thosedecisions in order to better illuminate reasons for women’s advantage in higher education.

Short Biography

Anne McDaniel is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Institute for Social and Eco-nomic Research and Policy at Columbia University. She received her PhD from theOhio State University. Her research interests include social stratification, sociology ofeducation, race, class and gender inequalities, comparative sociology and demography.Her current work focuses on gender inequalities in higher education in the U.S. andcross-nationally, including the female advantage in college completion and continuing sexsegregation of fields of study. She has published work on this area in the Annual Reviewof Sociology, Demography, and Comparative Education Review.

Notes

* Correspondence address: Anne McDaniel, Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, ColumbiaUniversity, 420 West 118th Street, 270J; Mail Code 3355, New York, NY 10027. E-mail:[email protected]

1 Breen et al. (2010) argue that in families where fathers own farms or are self-employed parents may expect sonsto inherit the family business and therefore invest more in their daughter’s education since education is a pathwayto securing better employment or improving marriage market chances for daughters.

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Women’s Advantage in Higher Education: Towards Understanding A Global Phenomenon

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