This post is one of a series of posts in observance of Women’s History Month.

In 1946, the Gallup Organization asked fathers and mothers about
expectations for their sons and, separately, their daughters. Sixty-four
percent of fathers with sons thought opportunities for their sons would be
better than the ones they’d had. A virtually identical 61 percent of women with
daughters gave that response about their daughters.

When Gallup repeated the question half a century later in 1997, fathers’
optimism about their sons was about the same. But mothers’ optimism about their
daughters had soared. Eighty-six percent of them said their daughter’s
opportunities would be better than their own. 
 

What changed? In 1945, only 18 percent of people approved of a “married women earning money in business or industry if she had a husband capable of supporting her.” By 1970, two-thirds did. Attitudes were changing. More doors began to open for women, and they started sprinting through them, armed with more education. One indicator comes from surveys of college freshmen taken over many years by UCLA. In 1966, 3 percent of entering freshmen reported that the highest degree their mother obtained was a graduate degree. In 2014, nearly a quarter did. In 2019, using a broader question, 27 percent did.

According to our AEI colleague Mark Perry, women in the class of 2020 will receive 60.9 percent of all associates’ degrees, 57.4 percent of all bachelors’ degrees, 59.9 percent of masters’, and 53.8 percent of doctorates. For the past nine years, he says, they have been awarded the majority of doctorates. Since 1982, Perry says, women have been awarded 14.4 million more of the college degrees than men.

The post Women making history: Women’s progress — what a difference 50 years makes appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.