For the most part, the issue of the college gender gap focuses on the economic question of fewer men than women earning degrees. Then it shifts to the “marriageable mate” issue which looks at what happens when women can’t find comparably educated men to marry. But there’s a third angle: missed social capital.

Spencer Foundation President Michael McPherson recently raised that issue … according to this Chronicle of Higher Education article.

Why are Americans who attend college more likely to vote than those who do not? And why are people who earn degrees less likely to smoke cigarettes?

Michael S. McPherson isn’t sure, but on Monday evening he told an audience of admissions officials here that such questions were worth investigating. After all, the answers might help explain how, exactly, attending college changes people.

“What makes these outcomes happen is a great, interesting puzzle,” said Mr. McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation and a former president of Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minn.

 McPherson was on a College Board panel that released the 2007 Education Pays study from the College Board. (full disclosure: I moderated the panel). Check out page 2 of that report for a summary of the non-academic benefit of a college degree.

This reporting on that study describes some of the implications:

It is a well established finding that smoking rates among college graduates is significantly lower than smoking among other adults. In 2005, only 9 percent of four-year college graduates smoked, compared to 26 percent of high school graduates. A higher percentage of the college graduates who smoked made an attempt to quit in the past 12 months than the high school graduates. In general, the study finds they adopt a healthier lifestyle. In 2005, 61 percent of college educated, ages 25-34 exercised vigorously compared to 31 percent of the high school graduates.

        …………………..

The study gives data that show that higher rates of volunteering, voting, donating blood, and lower unemployment and poverty rates correlate to higher levels of education. On voting, for example, in the 2004 presidential election, among the 25-44 age grouping, 76 percent who were college graduates reported voting, compared to 49 percent of high school graduates.

  Suzanne W. Morse, president of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, commented: “Our democracy will suffer if the only people who vote are white. I think we are moving toward a situation where our voting patterns and our participation patterns [documented in the report] are not reflecting our country in general.”

The obvious implication here is that the campus gender imbalances go far beyond awkward dating scenarios. Those imbalances forecast gender imbalances in the broader society in everything from civic engagement to health. Tell me again why the American Association of University Women concludes this is not a problem?

 

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