How Men are Becoming the “Second Sex”

Women are faced with countless challenges presented by gender differences and inequality: income disparities, reproductive rights, health issues and domestic violence. But there’s a new gender gap in education and birth rates that actually affects males. It suggests a change “that could have major and important implications for the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, marriage choices, and family roles,” says Mark J. Perry of The Journal of American Enterprise Institute.

While women still earn less than men with the same level of education, it is actually women who are exceeding in higher education. According to the 2010 Condition of Education, an annual government report by the National Center for Education Statistics, in the less than 10 years, women will make up 59 percent of total undergraduate enrollment and 61 percent of graduate enrollment.

Women already dominate at every degree level, accounting for a higher percentage of earned degrees than men, reports Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post, and this gender gap is likely to grow. The gender gap is also greater among certain minorities. The gap between black women and men, for example, is greater than the gap between white women and men. “The huge gender imbalance in college degrees,” writes Perry in the Enterprise blog, “suggest that men have increasingly become the second sex in higher education.”

And according to a new study published in Newsweek, males have even more catching up to do. Male birthrates in the last 10 years have fallen dramatically — mostly because of stress, like trauma caused by natural and social disasters, unemployment, weather and diet. It’s also no secret that fewer women are having babies in general.

It may take a while for women and men to be on an even playing field (women still earn only 77 cents on the dollar compared to men) — but, in at least two ways, women are way ahead of the game.

Julissa Treviño is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She graduated from Ithaca College in 2009.

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