Wednesdata - College Education - When Did Black Women Converge With White Men?
We're a moment that's never been more equal, and never more unequal, depending on the groups compared.
I saw a report from Richard Reeve’s American Institute of Boys and Men. It focused on the decline of educational attainment among men. One thing caught my eye:
The point of the graph is that women have higher rates of college enrollment than men. I believe that the comparisons one is intended to make is the gender gap within racial and ethnic groups.
However, check out the comparison between Black women and White men. 39% of 18-24 Black women are enrolled in college. 36% of White men are.
Of course, enrollment doesn’t translate into graduation. Below is the rate of degree attainment among those going to college:
About 2/3 of White men complete college within six years, and only 51% of Black women.
I have two lingering questions:
Are we seeing a convergence of college degree attainment between Black women and White men? You might think so based on the graphs above. Or does the unequal graduation rates maintain a sizeable degree gap between the groups?
Presumably there’s convergence between Black women and White men over time. Do we see similar trends of convergence when comparing Black women and White men as we do when comparing Black men and White women?
I used Current Population Survey data to examine long-run trends in college attainment. I coded 4 years + as having a college degree. I also coded an Associate’s degree as 1/2. I dropped all respondents who identify as Hispanic, and I focus on folks aged 25-30 in any particular year. Let’s take a look
Above we see college attainment rates among White non-Hispanic men aged 25-30 (black line) and among Black non-Hispanic women. I see a major convergence beginning in the late 1990s, to the point where today there is only a small gap. Both groups are around 40 - 45% today.
Let’s look at the simple difference between the two groups, which nicely shows the contrast.
In the early 1970s, White men had college attainment rates about 17 percentage points higher than Black women. But look at what’s happened in recent years. Massive convergence in the 2020s, so that for the first time we see no significant gap between these groups.
OK, what about a similar comparison between Black men and White women?
Like you, I also see a fairly obvious widening between these two groups, with White women rapidly increasing college educational attainment.
Unlike the convergence between White men and Black women, here we seen an opening up of the gap. In fact, the gap in college attainment today between White women and Black men, about 30%, is almost twice the size of the largest education gap in early 1970s between White men and Black women (17%).
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
Perhaps you’re someone who is interested in closing gaps between groups. Or perhaps you’re somebody who loves group differences and wants gaps between people as large as possible. Well, trends seem to be satisfying both. The gap between White men and Black women seems to have converged to equality, with rising degree attainment among Black women and stalled degree attainment among White men. But we also see White women zooming ahead of Black men - it’s odd to think in these terms, but there’s never been more educational inequality between these groups, with the gap twice as large today as in the early 1970s.
Of course, education is only one vector of the social world. How college degrees pay off, or don’t, for different folks can result in very durable economic disparities that aren’t fully reflective in educational attainment trends. Nevertheless, some interesting trends of simultaneous convergence and divergence.
Which is why we see the way the government is going and doing things to make education harder to obtain because yet again the minority group has figured out the code on how to succeed do well in life financially be on the same level as white men do you think white men like that? I mean we're getting doctorate degrees we're getting masters degrees because reality what we get a bachelors degree well might as well get the masters and after that might as well get the doctorate and that is scary to the white male establishment, but guess what we don't care so of course they're trying to roll back back all kinds of ways that they're gonna make education harder to obtain, but do they remember we were always oppressed so don't think that we won't find a way because we always have and always will. It's a shame that a large group of white women don't see this as a problem because if they start trying to take education away from one group, it will trickle down to you as well, no matter how much you think your proximity to the white mail establishment protects you from their crazy agendas it doesn't because they feel this way about all women no matter the color. Peter theil the tech bro behind JD Vance think that women shouldn't be allowed to vote and it's not just women of color. It's all women so we as the 97% of black women that voted for Kamala we did it for everybody regardless of race, creed or national origin because we know what it is like to be oppressed and it's funny. The poorest states are the red states not all red states but West Virginia relies 98% on government funding to keep their state afloat and running so if they need 98% government funding by the way, his government welfare how many people in that state do you think need federal government assistance? I'm gonna go with the majority of the state yet they will vote so that nobody else can get assistance so I guess because you're white and poor it's OK for you but you understand. Poor is poor lack of shelter is lack of shelter no matter which race you are so once you really are living way below the poverty level the fact that you've let politicians are billionaires. Tell you that you are better than that poor person over there that might be black and Hispanic is crazy because you both are just fighting to stay alive so you would want to be able to have the chance to get an education because everybody deserves to live a decent life have decent shelter to live in to have access to good food not just processed stuff that will eventually kill you faster in healthcare. I mean those are just basic rights as a citizen of this country, which is why black women have always knew and learned education is the way to get out of poverty.