The looming marriage shock
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Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on a trend rocking higher education: Women at colleges and universities now outnumber men at record levels. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, men make up 40.5 percent of college students, while women make up 59.5 percent. Women are also more likely to graduate with a diploma within six years.
This marks a huge swing. In 1970, men accounted for 58 percent of college students. “In 1972, there was about a 12 percentage point gap in favor of men getting a four-year college degree,” Richard Reeves, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, told me. “Now, it’s a 14-percentage point gap in favor of women.”
Does this mean the gender wage gap will soon be an unpleasant memory? Probably not.
But there is another way this education gap could affect American women and families: By upending dating and marriage.
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