Survey says: Women have overtaken men at every level of education in developed world.

BBC On-Line ^ | Tuesday, 16 September, 2003 | staff writer

[yankeedame]

Last Updated: Tuesday, 16 September, 2003, 08:58 GMT 09:58 UK

Girls more confident of success

Women are now much more
likely to go to university than men,

Women have overtaken men at every level of education in developed countries around the world.

And girls are now more confident of getting better-paid, professional jobs than their flagging male counterparts.

International education figures, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, show a consistent picture, across cultures and continents, of women achieving better results than men.

The OECD survey is a detailed comparison of education achievement and spending in 43 developed countries.

The success of girls is a complete reversal of what would have been expected a generation ago, said Andreas Schleicher, head of analysis at the OECD's education directorate.

And he says that the 1990s have seen a remarkable change in women's expectations and achievements.

The survey found that in almost every developed country, 15-year-old girls are more confident than boys about getting high-income jobs.

For example, in the United Kingdom, 63% of girls expect to have "white collar, high-skilled" jobs by the time they are 30, compared to only 51% of boys.

This picture of girls with higher expectations than boys is repeated in the United States, Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, France and Australia.

University challenge

And girls have good reason to be more confident than boys, because academically, around the globe, they are more successful - which is likely to lead to higher-income jobs.

In literacy skills, 15-year-old girls are ahead of boys in every one of the 43 countries in the OECD survey. In the UK, the gap in literacy scores between girls and boys at this age is 26%.

And this school-age gender gap leads to an increasingly stark difference between the success of male and female students in getting into university.

In New Zealand, 89% of women enter university, compared to 62% of men. In Iceland, 80% of women go into higher education, compared to 42% of men.

In the United Kingdom, the figures for 2001 show that 49% of women entered university, compared to 41% of men.

And Andreas Schleicher says that much of the rapid growth in higher education places and the larger number of students staying in education can be directly attributed to this growing academic success of women.

But why should boys be falling behind, in so many different countries?

Andreas Schleicher says there are "troubling signs" that boys are more susceptible to being put off education by disruptions in their home environment.

Boys seem less able to overcome obstacles to education, he says, whether it is peer group pressure or a lack of family support.

[yankeedame]

...Women civilize men. They bring forth new life and nurture it....

Oh, my friend, you are so right. To quote John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath"

"She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family. The strong place that could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear. She had practiced denying them in herself

"And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.

"But better than joy was calm.

"Imperturbability could be depended on...from her position as healer her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgement as a goddess.

"She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever deeply wavered or dispaired the family would fall. The family's will to function would be gone."

[meyer]

30 years in a technical field, and I have yet to benefit from 'preferential' hiring...and I do get my hands dirty. In fact, men leave me the nasty jobs. What princes they.

After 20 years in a technical field myself, my BS meter is finely tuned. It just went off.

I think white males are discovering that competition isn't what they thought it was...they might lose. No longer is it enough to have a white skin, male plumbing and a pretty smile to get any kind of job...

If that's the case, why has the preferential treatment been "necessary" for so long?

[Nataku X]

Women are apt to put up with more BS than men

Indeed. For that reason they will always excel in academics.

And, because men have stronger leadership qualities and don't use "crying" as an acceptable method of getting out of their mistakes, men will always excel in the workforce.

If you want to be successful at all levels, though, you have to take good with the bad and conquer your weaknesses.

[Question_Assumptions]

While the Muslim world may indeed have problems because it holds 51% of its population back, the Asian world is reducing its number of women well below 51% and the Western World isn't going to get very far having well below 2.1 children per women. While the answer certainly doesn't lie in holding women back or killing them before or shortly after birth, I also suspect that the answer doesn't lie in convincing women that children are a liability and that they shouldn't have them.

[Pest]

(D Kleiber)

Let us put man and woman together
And see which one is smarter
Some say men but I say no
The women got the men like a puppet show

Ain’t me, it’s the people they say
The men are leading the women astray
But I say, it’s the women today
Are smarter than the men in every way

That’s right! The women are smarter
That’s right! The women are smarter
A little boy sat down and cried
An old man passing asked him why
He said I can’t do what the big boys do
Old man sat down and he cried, too

Ain’t me, it’s the people that say
The men are leading the women astray
But I say, it’s the women today
Are smarter than the man in every way
That’s right, the women are smarter
That’s right, the women are smarter

It ain't me, it's the people that say
The men are leading the women astray
But I say, it's the women today
Are smarter than the men in every way
That's right, the women are smarter
That's right, the women are smarter
That's right, the women are smarter
Smarter than the men in every way
That's right, the women are smarter
That's right, the women are smarter
That's right, the women are smarter
Smarter than the men in every way
That's right it's the people that say the men are leading the women astray
But I Say, it's the women today, are smarter than the men in every way
That's right they're smarter

[Pest]

Smart woman (in a real short skirt)
By: jimmy buffett, marshall chapman
1988
This song is about being in my 40’s in the 80’s. it seems I’m learing more than I’m forgetting.
-- spoken:
"so I told her, ooh you got money of your own? well, that gives me the urge to merge."

Bimbo limbo is where I’ve been
I know you know that it’s wearing me thin
The times are changing, and it’s about time
I’m rearrangin’ all the guilt in my mind

Chorus:
I’m looking for a smart woman in a real short skirt
Smart woman who knows how to flirt
Smart woman got a mind of her own
Smart woman that’ll take me home
Take me home

I’m not your macho kind of guy
But I can be so when I’m feeling shy
Hey, baby, where’d you get your good looks
Ooh, babe, I want to carry your books

Chorus:
I’m looking for a smart woman in a real short skirt
Smart woman who knows how to flirt
Smart woman got a mind of her own
Smart woman that’ll take me home
Take me home

Beauty and brains (beauty and brains)
Best of both worlds (best of both worlds)
Think I can change (think I can change)
If you’ll be my, be my, be my girl

Chorus:
I’m looking for a smart woman in a real short skirt
Smart woman who knows how to flirt
Smart woman got a mind of her own
Smart woman that’ll take me home
Take me home

Chorus:
I’m looking for a smart woman in a real short skirt
Smart woman who knows how to flirt
Smart woman got a mind of her own
Smart woman better take me home
Take me home

[waterstraat]

In another 10 or 20 years, women will be running things exp in America, they will the majority in management, law, professional, medical, teaching, government, political offices, vetinary, etc.

Men will have lower paying less status jobs, men will have the dirty nasty jobs that women dont want, and if anyone stays at home to take care of the kitchen and do the house cleaning, it will be the men.

Besides women getting most of the college degrees and taking most of the high paid professional American jobs, lots of men also will be finding very few other types of decent paying jobs available such as computer programming, engineering, accounting, factory work because those jobs will be in asia.

The one who "has the gold" makes the rules, the one who makes and controls most of the money in a household, will be the one wearing the pants in the family.

[Calpernia]

There are ups and downs to this.

Women should not be oppressed.

But both parents in the 'career' world does harm a family unit with young children.

Kids need to be raised by moms, not day care.

No response here.

[CyberCowboy777]

ROTFLMAO

I can name two women placed in technical leadership positions on this property because they were women. The men with better skills did not have the one key component - female plumbing.

[CyberCowboy777]

Public schools are run by women for girls.

They do not account at all for learning of boys. The very system was contrived to build demurred workers.

Mix that with the castration of men in society and the preferential hiring/quotas of certain segments of society and you have a class of citizens purposely being held down.

[DolceAmara]

Lesbian power elite?

What lesbian power elite?

Please, do tell. This I gotta hear.

As for the topic at hand, however, it's nice to see the natural order being restored. :P

[Lost Highway]

Does this mean I am a minority now?

[Ta Wee]

=>I can name two women placed in technical leadership positions on this property because they were women. The men with better skills did not have the one key component - female plumbing.

I don't doubt it, and it's not right.

I got where I am honestly. I don't know about the guy I'm reporting to who has NO technical degree (as I DO) and 10 years less and narrower experience than I have...his position was created by his buddies so he'd have a place to hang out until retirement. He takes credit for my work.

But we all know, there are NO competent women, right guys? Kill 'em all down to the last girl-child and make the world a better place.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

It's nice to see the natural order being restored.

When did Wiccan become the "natural order?"

[CyberCowboy777]

I am a member of the He-Man Women haters club!

I have no issue with women in the work place or in Technical or Leadership positions. I do take issue with quotas and PC promotions. I also take issue with a public education system designed to put out workers and marginalize boys. The current system is not conducive with learning for 75% of boys.

I take issue with the effort to bring up educated girls while ignoring boys in public education.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I take issue with the effort to bring up educated girls while ignoring boys in public education.

Me too!

Signed,
DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
Secretary/Treasurer, HMWHC

[CyberCowboy777]

Secretary/Treasurer, HMWHC!

I love it!

I guess I could have hedged that statement better. I'll try again - so nobody can come back and say that CyberCowboy777 "takes issue with the effort to bring up educated girls"

I take issue with the effort to ignore boys in public education, not the education or advancement of girls.

[jjm2111]

I think white males are discovering that competition isn't what they thought it was...they might lose.

What a stupid statement. And where do you get this penetrating observation from, hm?

The whole "males" thing makes me think you're a closet DU'er. Only PC people out of the biomedical field use "males" or "females" in ordinary conversation.

[Ta Wee]

I think white males are discovering that competition isn't what they thought it was...they might lose.

What a stupid statement.


Because of course, no man could ever lose a fair intellectual competition with a woman. Women should be shot just to clean up things, right? Make the world perfect, and full of perfect beings.

[jjm2111]

Because of course, no man could ever lose a fair intellectual competition with a woman. Women should be shot just to clean up things, right? Make the world perfect, and full of perfect beings.

Another stupid statement. Whoever said that men couldn't compete with women intellectually? Look, in every workplace there is going to be favoritism, nepotism, etc. Men/men, women/women it doesn't matter. It's human nature.

The war between the sexes has been going on for quite a while. So what. However, in today's environment it's hard not to notice how in popular media, etc. men and boys are denigrated while women are elevated. In the public school system "girl" traits are rewared while "boy" traits are punished (or worse, drugged).