Female Supremacy Articles - Page 27

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Meanwhile, millions of semiskilled workers in developing countries are entering an increasingly globalized labor market, which all but guarantees a rise in the relative premium commanded by a college diploma.

So what we are talking about, in all likelihood, is an America where women are better educated than men and where education matters more than ever. Put those facts together, and you get some implications worth pondering.

In 1978, when I was a freshman in college, I met a woman who told me she was in law. "Oh," I said, "you're a secretary?" Her gentle but mortifying reply: "No, I'm a lawyer." Few of today's young people can even imagine making that kind of faux pas失礼 — a social blunder. According to census data, a higher share of women than men already work in management and professional jobs (37 percent versus 31 percent, in 2005).

Look for that gap to widen. A generation from now, the female lawyer with her male assistant will be the cliché. Look for women to outnumber men in many elite professions, and potentially in the political system that the professions feed. (The election of a female president is a question of when, not whether.)

Women's superior education will increase their earning power relative to men's, and on average they will be marrying down, educationally speaking. A third of today's college-bound 12-year-old girls can expect to "settle" for a mate without a university diploma. But women will not stop wanting to be hands-on moms.