Monday, November 24, 2014

The Education Battle of the Sexes

The following chart shows the 12-month moving average of the number of women with master's degrees divided by the number of men with master's degrees (in the civilian labor force aged 25 years and up).


Click to enlarge.

When it comes to the workforce, women now hold 17% more master's degrees than men.

Men, what's our hope from here?

1. Construction employment will miraculously rebound?
2. Professional sports will need us more than we need them?
3. Prisons will expand?
4. Global nuclear war?
5. Beer?

Throw me a bone here! What's our plan!

Women, why are you doing this?

1. Want a better life?
2. Not buying the optimistic projections of future prosperity?
3. Still holding a grudge over the past several thousand years?
4. Tired of violent crime?
5. Or is it something else?

What is it! Inquiring minds want to know!

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh great, now you've come up with another unanswerable question about women. Nice work!

Stagflationary Mark said...

Anonymous,

Life is filled with mysteries.

What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a solid gold baby? Maybe we'll never know. - Jack Handey

fudge_hend said...

Using your linear channel and the ratio of women/men from when I went to Grad school I'd estimate I graduated somewhere between 1910-1920 (that would be way off, I'm not that old). Sadly the hard science degrees don't attract the women, that is a battle I'd have happily been on the losing end of as a willing warrior.

Death by snu snu!

Stagflationary Mark said...

fudge_hend,

There was a girl in my advanced physics class in the 1980s.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds. I think there were only about 8 of us in total. For what it is worth, the business school was fairly packed though.

I never got a graduate degree. I opted for a BS in computer science and a BA in physics (figured it would help my career more, which in hindsight, it did).

Anonymous said...

An alarming number of jobs in social work apparently require a Master's now, according to some women chatting about the topic on a local jobs board.

Not to get promoted, just to start at the lower tiers.

--A fellow Cascadian

Stagflationary Mark said...

Anonymous,

I would believe that. I wonder how long it will be before a PhD is required?

Civilian Labor Force - College Graduates - Doctoral Degree, 25 years and over

The Great Recession generated quite a few.