A Study of the Expansion of Women's Higher Education in the United States: Focusing on the Debate on Gender Balancing

Abstract

 While higher education enrollment rates and gender ratios in Japan are higher for men than for women, OECD member countries are experiencing a “reverse gender gap” phenomenon in which women's enrollment rates exceed those of men; this is particularly notable in the United States.

 In the U.S., women's higher education has expanded rapidly since the 1950s and 1960s, with a “reverse gender gap” phenomenon already observed in the 1980s. However, since the gender ratio has not changed significantly since 2005, it has been argued that the ratio has been intentionally manipulated (gender balancing) as a new form of discrimination against women.

 Unlike racial affirmative action (AA), which has been the subject of several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, this debate has few precedents and little research. Here, the existence of some kind of “barrier” can be seen.

 The purpose of this study is to review the background of the expansion of women's higher education in the U.S. from the 19th century onward, and then to examine the “barrier” to this debate by reviewing recent discussions on gender balancing.

 Women's higher education in the 19th century expanded mainly after the Civil War, largely in the hands of women's colleges. From the 1900s on, coeducational colleges and universities increased, but admission for women was sometimes severely restricted. After World War II, the rate of women enrolling in higher education expanded further, supported by the contributions of the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s, the expansion of institutions of higher education, and legislation such as Title IX, which was passed in 1972. In 1979, the percentage of women exceeded that of men, but the expansion peaked in the early 2000s.

 In the early 2000s, the existence of affirmative action for men by some private universities was reported by court decisions and the media, with “accusations” made by admissions officers. In the mid-2000s, there were arguments for the unconstitutionality of this practice. There was even a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (CCR) investigation in the late 2000s, but the results were not made public.

 In recent years, it has been argued that this practice should not be equated with AA in the first place: some have proposed redefining the practice as a new form of discrimination against women, using the term “gender balancing”.

 This paper points out two reasons (barriers) why the gender balancing debate has not progressed as far as the race AA debate: the existence of “male privilege” or “discrimination against women” has not been clearly demonstrated, due to a lack of research and studies, and the claim of “gender blind” admissions without “discrimination against women” may divide liberals because it falls in line with the arguments of the anti-race AA faction.

 Finally, the paper discusses the possibility that the recent reports of “disengagement from education” among male students due to the spread of COVID-19 may trigger the debate again, and points out that discussion within the framework of gender is called for even if this particular issue does not arise.