School of Urban Planning and Development
U.S.C.
October 7, 1996
The 20th century has witnessed dramatic changes in the status of women. One of the most important is rising educational attainment, particularly by young women. A cohort analysis brings this change into perspective.
Exhibit A displays raw data compiled in the new book, Balancing Act, by Daphne Spain and Suzanne Bianchi. The data are displayed in an age-by-period matrix, which is graphed in Exhibit B. The latter represents the age profile of educational attainment that prevailed in each decade; however, the downward sloping lines create the misleading impression that women lose their education as they grow older.
Actual trends for women as they grow older are found by reading the diagonals of Exhibit A, because each decade women grow 10 years older. Exhibit C displays the data in this fashion, with a separate line for each cohort, identified by its age in 1960, the first year of our data. Alternatively, the data can be reconfigured as in Exhibit D, showing the cohort trends as they advance across age groups, as identified by cohorts' year of birth.
The cohort graphs provide much better insight into the data: After reaching age 25, the percentage of women who complete high school is relatively fixed for the rest of their life. For women born early in this century that percentage was low, but among those born in the early part of the baby boom era (1945-54) high school completion rose above 80%. Within womens' lifetimes, there is a slight upward creep in high school completion, reflecting the higher mortality of less educated women in the very oldest age bracket, but also reflecting recall bias ("resume padding") by middle-aged women.
The dramatic story is the 5 to 10 point rise in high school completion between successive cohorts. The largest increase is between women born in 1905-1914 (reaching age 25 in 1930-39) and women born in 1915-1924 (reaching age 25 in 1940-49). Even more dramatic changes, albeit at lower percentages, are observable in data for college graduation that are provided in the same table by Spain and Bianchi.
Exhibit A: Education of Women in Selected Age
Groups
Source: Spain, Daphne and Suzanne M. Bianchi (1996). Balancing Act. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, Table 3-1.
Exhibit B: Age-Cross Section in Multiple Periods
Percent of Women Who Have Completed High School, by Age and Period
Exhibit C: The Cohort Trend Across Multiple Periods
Percent of Women Who Have Completed High School, by Age in 1960
Exhibit D: The Cohort Trend Across Multiple Ages
Percent of Women Who Have Completed High School, by Birth Cohort
Prepared by Lee Menifee and Dowell Myers 2/25/97