More women are graduating from college than ever before. Women make up only 46.6% of the overall labor force, but they first reached 45% of the college-educated labor force in 2000. Since 2013, women constituted 49% of all college graduates in the workforce, and they are the majority of college graduates in the workforce today. 57% of bachelor’s degrees are earned by women.
Further, there are more women led households. Women led households have grown from 26% to 30.5% from 1980 to 2019. It is the culmination of a trend that started maybe over 40 years ago,” said Nicole Smith, chief economist at Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. It's going to give women a lot more earning potential. It’s going to give them more control over their finances, their own destiny.
Ariane Hegewisch, program director of employment and earnings at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, said several factors—including future demand for female-dominated professions, impact of automation on female-dominated professions, and the child and elder care policy landscape—will shape the female share of the college-educated labor force. One of the issues with pay gaps is retirement income. With more college educated women, they can make higher earnings and higher payments into the social security system. Those jobs that are hard to fill will likely be filled by women. And with pipelines thinning within organizations, women are more likely to fill leadership roles.
Therefore, employers have to rethink their benefits. This redesign should also positively impact the retirement earnings gap. For example, career minded women may delay childbirth; therefore, benefit designs should include egg freezing. According to Mercer’s 2015 Health Care Benefits study, only 6% of employers at that time were incorporating such a feature in their plans.
Further, taking time off for children should not impact career growth and leadership pipelines. Employers such as IBM actually make it a positive experience, to the point where coming back part-time is now part of the career ladder, and promotions are not delayed simply because of hours worked. “With greater numbers, HR departments are going to have to pay more attention to their female-educated workers,” said Richard Fry, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. “For example, there’s evidence that female workers maybe more value flexible-work arrangements. They may value more highly generous parental-leave policies.”
On the other hand, possessing particular degrees could, at times, be a disadvantage to women. Having a degree in a woman-dominated profession such as teaching “puts women at a significant disadvantage not only in their first job, but the cumulative impact over a lifetime can be millions of dollars for a young woman,” Nicole Smith said.
Finally, there could be a long-term impact on the future workforce. As female college-attainment rises, the fertility rate typically goes down. This is due to educated women delaying pregnancy. With a delay in childbearing and lower family sizes, immigration may be necessary to close the gap.
Source: Wall Street Journal 8/20/19