That there has been a steady rise in the educational attainment of the U.S. population over the past 35 years is well known: the proportion of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 with at least 4 years of high school has risen from 35 per cent in 1940 to 80 per cent in 1974. The percentage of female high school graduates 20 and 21 years old who have completed at least some college has risen from 24 per cent in 1940 to 46 per cent in 1974; the comparable figures for men are 30 per cent in 1940 and 49 per cent in 1974 (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1974a).
Yet important differences exist between men and women both in the level of educational attainment of each group and in the types of educational training each pursues. For instance, though women are somewhat more likely to finish high school than are men, women are less likely to continue on to college. And if they do go on to college, women are less likely to complete all 4 years. In 1974, 47 per cent of all white women between 25 and 34 years old had completed high school but had no college training, and an additional 33 per cent had completed some college. The comparable figures for white males are 38 per cent with only a high school degree, and 44 per cent with at least some college (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1974).
There are several stereo typie explanations for these sex differences in educational attainment. First, it is argued, a family is more likely to invest in a son's education than in a daughter's, in the belief that the son must be able to find a job, but the daughter may not have to. Second, even if the daughter intends to work, most jobs open to her do not require a college degree: skills necessary for secretarial, clerical, and operative positions can be learned on the job. And third, so the argument goes, the daughter will undoubtedly get married and have children, and will in any case stop her education at that point.
Indeed, marriage and childbearing have traditionally been considered sufficient reasons for women to terminate their schooling, though the parallel roles for men (husband and father) did not, in general, preclude a man from continuing to be a student as well. In discussing the results of a recent national survey, Campbell, Converse, and Rodgers (Note 1) state:
The proportion of unmarried young women who report attending school of some kind (61 per cent) is twice as high as that of their married age cohort (29 per cent), but the proportion of unmarried men of this age [who report attending school] (47 per cent) is virtually identical to that of married men (48 per cent). When asked why they had terminated their formal education when they had, almost half of the married women referred to their marriage; this response was far less common among young married men.
These explanations for sex differences in educational attainment have taken a rather severe beating in the past decade. First, the argument that women need not support themselves: Increasing numbers of women are the sole wage earners for their families or are economically independent. In March 1973, 42 per cent of all women in the labor force were single, widowed, divorced, or separated, and thus (to a greater or lesser extent) economically on their own; another 19 per cent of the female labor force were married to men with less than $7,000 annual income (U.S. Department of Labor, 1975). Increasingly, women must face the likelihood that at some point in their lifetime they will have to support themselves or contribute to the family income.
Second, the argument that women's work does not require extensive training or educational degrees fails on two counts: (1) women are bringing more education to their traditional jobs and thus making that training a requirement of the position (most secretaries, for instance, are now expected to have some college training); and (2) women are beginning to challenge the rigidity with which "women's work" has been defined, and in seeking entrance to "male jobs," they have had to acquire the prerequisite educational background.
And third, the argument that, women will give up their schooling for marriage and family: Increasingly numbers of women, in examining their prospects for entering or reentering the labor force, are not abandoning their educational careers upon marriage and the advent of children. The composition of the student population of the United States-in terms of both age and sex-is rapidly changing. Between 1970 and 1974, the number of women in college increased by 30 per cent, while the number of men only increased by 12 per cent. Furthermore, although overall graduate school enrollment has dropped 9 per cent since 1969, the proportion of women in graduate school continues to rise. In 1971, women earned 42 per cent of all BAs and 40 per cent of all MAs. Although women constituted only 14 per cent of all Ph.D.s awarded in 1971, that number is likely to rise quickly in the next few years, for the pool of candidates from which they are drawn is growing rapidly (both in actual numbers and compared with men) (U.S. Department of Labor, 1975).
Not only is the proportion of women seeking education beyond the high school diploma fast approaching that of men, women are also beginning to compete with men to gain entry to the high-prestige occupations that were traditionally closed to them. The proportion of women enrolled in professional schools for such fields as law, medicine, architecture, and engineering, although still low, has risen steadily since 1960. For instance, of the total enrollment in law schools, women accounted for 4 per cent in 1960, 12 per cent in 1972, and 19 per cent in 1974. The same trend may be seen in total enrollments in medical schools, in which women represented 6 per cent of the total in 1960, 13 per cent in 1972, and 18 per cent in 1974. The increasing proportion of women in the first-year class of these programs suggests that these trends will continue (McCarthy and Wolfle, 1975; Parrish, 1974).
Finally, evidence exists that fewer women are abandoning their educational plans upon marriage and childbearing, or they are setting aside these plans only temporarily. This trend may be seen in the number of women 25 years and older, who are in school. Between 1970 and 1974, for instance, the college enrollment of women between the ages of 25 and 34 rose from 409,000 to 831,000-an increase of 102 per cent. The comparable increase for men between 25 and 34 was 46 per cent: from 940,000 to 1,371,000 in 1974. Of women in college between the ages of 16 and 34, those 25 years and older rose from 14 per cent in 1970 to 21 per cent in 1974 (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1975c).
During the period 1970-1974, part-time enrollment in college increased 50 per cent, compared with a 10 per cent increase in the number of full-time students. The role that the older college students play in this trend toward part-time continuing education is evident: 63 per cent of the 25-34-year-olds were enrolled on a part-time basis in 1974, compared with only 17 per cent of those in the traditional college cohort (18-24-year-olds) (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1975).
These changes have had two important effects on the lives of American women. First, the young women in the age cohort that traditionally constituted the student population (those under age 25) are facing much less resistance-social and institutional-in their efforts to gain access to the training that is a prerequisite for career mobility. Second, and perhaps more important, those women not in the traditional student cohort-those who are older, who are married, or who have children-are no longer deemed to have "missed the boat" by having taken on family roles before completing their schooling. "Student" is no longer synonymous with "pre-adult."
In the following sections, some of the push and pull factors associated with the return of older women to school will be discussed: changes in the marital and childbearing patterns that have made continuing education more easy to arrange and changes in the labor market that have made that education more desirable to acquire- at least for women.
