The 2008-09 academic year marked the first time that women in the United States earned more doctorate degrees than men, according to a report issued by the Council of Graduate Schools.
Following trends of the past decade, the percentage of doctorates that are awarded to women each year slightly increased and edged out the men with a majority of 50.4 percent. Women already earn the majority of bachelor's and master's degrees nationwide.
Despite these gains, men still earned the majority of doctorates at the University, awarded at 55.27 percent, said David Wolcott, assistant vice president for graduate studies at the University.
Wolcott attributed the discrepancy to the fact that the distribution of doctorates between the two genders is linked to the distribution of students per discipline at particular schools.
"Because the national data is a snapshot of all disciplines throughout the U.S., [the University] is not necessarily a mirror of the distribution," Wolcott said.
For example, during 2008-09, 72 percent of all doctoral degrees in education at the University were awarded to women, 100 percent in nursing and only 19 percent of all engineering doctoral degrees.
These tendencies corresponded with CGS's national study, in which women held about two-thirds of doctoral degrees in education and only 22 percent in engineering.
But Politics Prof. Steven Rhoads, who teaches "Sex Differences: Biology, Culture, Politics and Policy" at the University, said more in-depth research needs to be conducted before conclusions regarding these statistics can be drawn.
"I know there's a definite difference in disciplines' makeup, but I think I'd want to look at other major schools and see how they did," Rhoads said. "Then we'd have to find out if [engineering, education and nursing] programs are bigger at other schools than they are here."
More important, he said, is examining the trend of burgeoning female success in higher education.
"One way to look at this report is as a part of a general trend of men falling behind women. It began with more BAs going to women, then MAs and now [it has] progressed to PhDs," Rhoads said. "I think women are simply beating the pants off of men."
In fact, the CGS report stated that women held about six out of every 10 of the graduate degrees awarded during 2008-09 academic year. Rhoads said this disparity creates unexpectedly mixed effects.
"It's certainly good for women getting opportunities for jobs, but it's a problem on the social side. Typically women want to marry men who are at least as well educated," Rhoads said.
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