New research suggests that the college gender gap is expected to widen between young men and women. According to a recent survey from Pew Research Center, 68 percent of teenage girls plan to attend a four-year college, compared to 59 percent of teenage boys.
College enrollment among 18- to 20-year-olds who are no longer in high school mirror this trend. In 2017, Pew found that 64 percent of women in this age group who were out of high school were enrolled in college, versus 55 percent of men in the same age group.
While this may be reassuring news to feminists decrying the gender wage gap, data revealed that money was a larger motivator for teenage men than teenage women. Boys are much more likely than girls to say that “having a lot of money when they grow up would be extremely or very important to them” — 61 percent versus 41 percent. This is probably why male college students typically find themselves in majors that end up paying more.
After analyzing nearly 47,000 resumes, Glassdoor concluded that, “Many college majors that lead to high-paying roles in tech and engineering are male dominated, while majors that lead to lower-paying roles in social sciences and liberal arts tend to be female dominated, placing men in higher-paying career pathways, on average.”
For those who don’t choose the traditional college path, trade schools and apprenticeships present another opportunity for real advancement, yet few women choose this lucrative path. According to the Department of Labor, women make up just 4 percent of the workforce in natural resources, construction, and maintenance.
Perhaps the most glaring example can be found in construction. While women represent less than 10 percent of this industry, the gender pay gap is much slimmer, with women earning an average of 95.7 percent of what men make. Plus, trades people in construction start with a fairly high salary, sometimes in the six-figure range.
While trades may not seem as glamorous or respectable to career women, the numbers don’t lie.
Sarah Liles, an art student who graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with plenty of student debt, ditched her degree to become a pipefitter and now earns $49 an hour as an estimator and project engineer. While she received some initial criticism from her family, she has no regrets. “At the end of the day, you go home and take a shower and put on nice clothes because you can afford nice clothes,” Liles told the Chicago Tribune.
In the Trump economy, women suffer from no shortage of well-paying job opportunities, whether they choose college or alternative educational paths. It’s fine if they’re not as motivated by money than males, but liberals need to keep that motivation in mind before they complain about the gender pay gap.
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is writer from California. He is a National Journalism Center graduate and formerly served as a development officer for Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch.
