College Majors Could Cause Women to Earn Less
It's not just college admissions offices that treat boys and girls differently. Research shows that once they graduate from college and enter the workforce, men earn more money than women. Part of the reason for that wage gap could in fact be the decisions women make in college.
The April release of Behind the Pay Gap by the American Association of University Women Education Foundation reported that one year after college graduation, women working full time earn just 80 percent as much as their male counterparts. The report noted that one potential reason for this difference is that female students are clustered in college majors tied to careers that lead to smaller paychecks. Areas such as education, health, and psychology are dominated by women, while men make up the majority of engineering, physical science, and mathematics majors—occupations that typically pay more.
Londa Schiebinger, director of Stanford University's Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, says it's not that women don't care how much they make but rather that they are more influenced by other factors. For example, she says women tend to prefer being around other women. If more professors, students, and professionals in a field of study are women, female applicants are more likely to choose that discipline as a college major. "I don't think they consider pay as much as something they have a stronger commitment to," she says, citing teaching and community service as examples of fields women connect to.
The idea that women don't place high financial gains as their top priority is an interesting comment on how women perceive their responsibilities within the family unit, Schiebinger says. "Women still feel freer to do what they want to do and still feel they aren't the primary wage earner," she says.
AAUW Educational Foundation says the smaller numbers of women in certain fields can always grow. But even if that happens, there's still a piece of the gender wage gap puzzle that is missing. Hill says, and the study agrees, that piece could be discrimination. "It seems to be conventional wisdom that as younger generations make different choices, the wage gap will disappear," she says. "But even when women are making the 'right' choices, they are still getting paid less."
advertisement
