Forbes – Tim Worstall
“There’s a new paper out there looking at the progress on gender equality around the world. That paper, in the Journal of African Development, looks at three essential points. How much of the gender gap in education is being closed, how much of it in employment (and thus pay and income) and how much in political representation? Note that this is a global study so the numbers are going to be rather behind those of the UK and US. The way the paper is being read is that increased female access to education does not lead to greater gender equality of the other two. Yet this isn’t actually what the paper, properly understood, is saying at all. The important concept we have to add is of age cohorts. And once we do that then we can see that what we’re really being told is that greater access to education does indeed aid in closing those other two gaps. The point is though that this happens by age cohort: exactly the same as has happened in the UK and US in recent decades. There’s much greater gender inequality among 50 and 60 years olds in our own societies than there is among 25 year olds. And no, this isn’t solely the result of child bearing and rearing. It really was true that women had fewer career choices and less access to education 40 years ago than they do now. And some (please note, some) of that difference is reflected in the positions of those who were educated or not 40 years ago.”(more)