Higher education pays off for women, U.S. study reveals

[CShine]

For years, university administrators have been scratching their heads over why female students are flooding into higher education. A U.S. researcher says she may have the answer — a finding Canadian academics say also holds water at institutions here. It's the money, said Laura Perna, an assistant professor of educational policy and leadership at the University of Maryland. Young women are more motivated to do well in university and college than men because they know there is an immediate economic benefit, Prof. Perna found.

Drawing on data from a U.S. Department of Education survey of more than 9,000 Americans who graduated from high school in 1992 and were interviewed occasionally until 2000, Prof. Perna found that the incomes of women with a bachelor's degree were 24 per cent higher than those of women with only a high-school diploma. Young men had no significant wage benefit from higher education, she said in an interview.

"This suggests that the greater rates of college enrolment and degree attainment for women than for men may make sense. These may be rational decisions that people are making," said Prof. Perna, who recently presented her findings at the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting in San Diego.

She found that occupations dominated by men with only high-school diplomas, such as skilled blue-collar work, pay much better than the jobs that women without university degrees tend to have. Economics professors in Canada say this is also true in this country.

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