Carleton University admits more male students than females. But it graduates more female students than males. Why? What, if anything, can and should we do about it? (I don't know.)
The public access data is here. (Datacubes is a lovely tool, but it takes a little time learning how to use it.)
You can see there's a difference from the public access data. I can also get access to Carleton internal data. Except I can't seem to access it from home, so what follows comes from memory:
1. Among the 20 or so Ontario universities, only Carleton, Waterloo, the smaller University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and the tiny Dominican University College, admit more males than females.
2. The exact numbers vary year by year, and across cohorts and faculties, but at Carleton we nearly always see lower continuation and graduation rates for males than females. Cumulative differences of 5 or 10 percentage points are not uncommon a few years after admission. The difference is big enough to matter.
3. The Faculties of Arts and Social Science, and Public Affairs (Law, Criminology, Political Science, Economics, Journalism and Communication, etc.) have a bigger male-female difference in continuation and graduation rates than the Faculties of Science, Engineering and Design, and Business. (FASS and FPA also have more female than male students.)
4. Unsurprisingly, the biggest drop in cohort numbers comes in the students' first year. But surprisingly, the male-female difference only starts to appear after second year. (Perhaps I should double-check those numbers, because they are surprising, and don't match what Ross Finnie and Theresa Qiu found as quoted below.) [Update: I checked, and my memory was correct. But Ross and Theresa say that more female students than males switch universities, so if a lot of females switch after first year, this might reconcile my results with theirs, because my data can't distinguish those who switch universities from those who drop out.]
An econometrician who works at the University tells me that the male-female difference in retention rates disappears once you add the students' grades to the equation. But that seems open to more than one causal interpretation.
Carleton is certainly not alone. Ross Finnie and Theresa Qiu (big pdf) have much better data than me, and have done a much better analysis than I could do, and they find the same pattern in Atlantic Canada:
"Men leave at considerably higher rates than woman at the university level: 17 versus 13.8 percent in the first year for the 17 to 20 group, 14.4 versus 10 in the second year, with a cumulative difference of 28.4 percent versus 21.9 by the end of year 2. “What’s the matter with men?” is thus seen to be a relevant question with respect to persistence rates as well as access rates – i.e., going on as well as getting into PSE.
The implications of these findings are important. Not only do men enter university at substantially lower rates than women (e.g., Finnie, Lascelles, Laporte (2004), Finnie and Mueller (2008), Frenette and Zeman (2007)), they are also considerably less likely to continue on in their studies. Gender differences in final graduation rates – i.e., the numbers actually obtaining degrees – are, therefore, skewed even further than the access rates we have previously been looking to would indicate.
Women’s switching rates are, conversely, a bit higher than men’s. This means that when we put leaving and switching rates together, which (again) is the “quit rate” from the perspective of individual institutions, the true gender differences in persistence in PSE (i.e., after allowing for switchers) are understated. The benefit of being able to include switchers in our analysis, as is possible with the PSIS data, is again clear. The reasons for these different gender patterns represent an interesting topic for further research." (p. 35)
Universities care about retention and graduation rates. They care because they don't get money from students who quit. They care because their government funders tell them they ought to care. And they care because they want their students to do well. Retention has been on the agenda at Carleton for as long as I can remember.
But I can't remember sex differences in retention being on the agenda.
I am pretty sure that if it were the other way around — if women's retention rates were worse than men's — we would be hearing a lot about it, and there would be lots of demands that somebody do something.
What explanations would you give, and what policies would you recommend, if it were the other way around?
Maybe it's time for the Goose Sauce Gambit. Let's do the gender switch. Are you saying it's part of boys' essential nature? Are you blaming the victim? Or are universities a hostile environment for boys?
Me, I don't know. It could be lots of things. Some of which aren't a problem, or are problems we can't do anything about. But sometimes I walk around campus, and try to imagine I'm not familiar with what I'm seeing and hearing, and try to see it all through fresh male eyes and ears. Would I feel welcome in that professor's office, given the posters on the door?
Sensitivity training?
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Interesting parallel universe where dropout rates are explained by kids with filthy rich parents at elite Univeristies starting companies. Pretty sure the real world in Canada too, is one where kids with poor parents are completly aware that going to college entails risks which will cause more anxiety and worse performance even when all else is equal. No one is going to prestent University education as desirable to them anyway. Rather they will get told that you can be super happy as a hairdresser and that they should not overaspire.
Also, even in Ottawa, is there not a significant private sector? I know at the very least there’s a significant shadow public service – that contracted out stuff that the Cons love – that isn’t bound by the same Employment Equity Act. Government jobs are not the be all and end all on this issue.
Yes, contractors are bound by the Employment Equity Act. The Employment Equity Act applies not only to the Public Service, but to all Federally regulated places of work. That means railways, phone companies, anything nuclear, airlines and shipping; anywhere where the Canada Labour Code runs. A federal office is a federal place of work for everybody.
The Act may not be enforced for these companies, but that is an entirely different story from it doesn’t apply at all. The “Shadow Public Service” is not not bound by the Public Service Employment Act, which is another statute entirely and deals with process and the holy definition of “merit”. It also makes you a Treasury Board employee, which gets you a government pension, benefits and union membership; all the good stuff.
When you’re hiring for senior positions “qualifications” is a softer set than entry level, where you’re mostly looking to hit the check boxes.
And where are these mythical entry-level positions? Anything I have seen in most of the private sector has been transformed into a Purple Squirrel: 5 years experience, qualified with applicable Codes, yet only paid entry-level wages.
The Purple Squirrel phenomenon is so widespread I seriously doubt we actually have a skills shortage in this country, rather we have a failure of reason by HR departments and corporate managers generally. Market power run amok.
The government is less prone to purple squirrels, actually. Once you realize the “code” for resumes (get yours professionally done, the format is government-specific) and learn French, you’re off to the races. I have repeatedly said this here so that Nick’s students might benefit from it if he passes it on.
Somewhat off topic, but I see the Provincial Tories have released their post-secondary education policy document. Their focus on colleges seems to reflect a concern about people attending university but dropping out (or worse, finishing university, only to have to complete a college degree to acquire useful skills).
http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/stories/2013/February/study_dropouts_werent_prepared_in_first_place.html
An interesting study. Looks like students drop out after learning from their marks that they aren’t cut out for it.
Demographic snapshot of the Federal Public Service:
[link here NR]
The Employment Equity targets, that is that Public Service profile for the group meets or exceed that of the general labour force has been achieved for Women, Aboriginal Peoples and Visible Minorities. The only group still below target is People with Disabilities.
But I don’t see any move to wind down any part Employment Equity programme once the Public Service meets or exceeds that target. I think there is a strong risk of programme drift there. Any remedial programme that does not have a clear “end target” and exit strategy risks becoming dead burden.
Determinant: do you ever see anyone writing about this? I don’t, but maybe I’m just not reading widely enough.
I have heard of “programme drift”, but I’m not sure I understand precisely what it means or what causes it. Maybe it’s programme drift. Maybe it’s sheer inertia. Maybe the true programme always was different from the published. This programme did appear to have a clear “end target”, which it has sailed right past.
And this with a conservative government?
“Programme Drift”, as I used it, is a programme that had good intentions and a clear problem at one time, but that problem is now solved, but the solution remains and is now causing its own problems. A well-intended solution has ceased to be the solution and become the problem.
There is a profound disconnect in what employment equity is supposed to achieve in the Public Service in particular (ignoring the Federally-regulated private sector). Policy makers and high-ranking Public Servants may have felt at the beginning that it was to ensure that Canada has a broad and inclusive Public Service that represents all Canadians. That promotes the government’s legitimacy in that everyone can feel that their community is represented in the Public Service and that, conversely, they are not excluded. In my opinion, that is both just and laudable. It also has a clear end-target, no more remediation when you aren’t short of a given group.
That’s the “macro” or “high-level” view, if you will.
The “micro” is that Employment Equity was supposed to give a hand up to disadvantaged groups, therefore give X person a job because they are a member of Y group, which has suffered discrimination historically. That is a profound benefit to Equity Groups even after the macro equity goal is achieved; what beneficiary would want to lose that? Is the programme a remedial, terminating policy or a guise for a rent?
Low-level (clerks and secretarial) jobs are often restricted to Employment Equity groups, it was a problem in Ottawa a year ago when a woman made an application for such a job. A sidenote is that the woman could have benefited from the “Women” column under Employment Equity so it was tempest in a teapot.
The short answer as to why nobody touches this is that arguing against Employment Equity paints you as a bigot. No, I don’t see anyone writing about this.
Nick – “I am pretty sure that if it were the other way around — if women’s retention rates were worse than men’s — we would be hearing a lot about it, and there would be lots of demands that somebody do something.”
I very much like the facts and figures part of the post. They speak for themselves. Non-completion is a huge problem – the studies find that people who start university and don’t complete tend to have bad economic outcomes – worse IIRC than people who don’t go to university at all. People who start university and don’t finish even have higher divorce rates than people who complete, though there are some causality issues there. There is a huge amount of ignorance and complacency about such issues on the part of university faculty – and I don’t think we can afford to be either.
Yet I don’t think it’s necessary to say “if women’s…”. First of all, while this might have been true 20 years ago, I don’t think it’s true any more – there is a huge amount of concern about boys failing in school. If there isn’t concern about retention rates, it’s probably just because the data isn’t widely available – it’s hard to get longitudinal data, and see how people are doing over time. Second, it’s not good strategy – it alienates more people than it brings in (committed masculinists being a somewhat small group).
Frances: maybe. But the data on retention by sex have been available (at least at Carleton) for many years. And Ross Finnie and Theresa Qiu had very good longitudional data, and did many studies on access and retention, but I can only find that short passage in their one study on Atlantic Canada that talks about males and retention. It’s unlikely it’s only a problem in Atlantic Canada. And anyone can see that there are few males in Arts and Social Sciences, but nobody “sees” it, in the way they do “see” few women where there are few women.
And data collection sometimes follows the agenda, as much as vice versa.
What strategy did feminists use when they wanted to change the agenda? Did they worry about alienating people? It seems to have worked for them. And my interpretation of the data is much much milder than the things feminists have said. I have not jumped to the conclusion that “it’s all discrimination”. (I very much doubt that it is all “discrimination”, though it may be in part.) I’m not even sure that it is a problem.
Yes, there is starting to be a lot of concern about boys failing (being failed?) at school. Just last week I saw a good article by Margaret Wente(?) in the Globe and Mail, that didn’t blame it all on the boys. But I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s a woman writing about the issue. Far too often, gender studies = womens studies = feminist studies. And the male exceptions mostly prove the rule.
Committed masculinists are a small group at universities. Those who say they are being even smaller. It may come from outside universities.
I don’t have the sort of skills and abilities to collect and analyse the data properly. But others do. All I can do is raise some questions, and hope others will try to answer them.
From the WSJ, “why men are more likely to drop out”
From VoxEU on effects of mixed-gender classes in high school
http://www.voxeu.org/article/long-run-gains-not-mixing-genders-high-school-classes
I see several problems in constructing a symmetry between women and men here. A lot of this has already been mentioned by other commenters, I agree that the problem is simply not as pressing for men as for women, and this is why there is less initiative from men to do something about it.
For me this is really the key: We still have gender imbalances, and they also hurt men in many regards, since they are pressed into conforming with certain roles, but they are still less inconvenienced by this than women were in the past.
Sure, there are fewer men in the social sciences and in the arts, but this is not seen as a problem, because the pay is crap, its not prestigious, and there are no widely-admired male role models who would inspire men to go into these fields against the disapproval of their environment. Are men short-changed by this? Probably, but then it is really up to them to emancipate themselves, go into “female” fields, and suffer through the teasing of their own gender (“Hahaha, you are studying to be a nurse? And you want to become a kindergarden teacher? Haha!” – It would probably be hard for a high school student or young college kid to overcome the pressure of his peers).
It certainly is a problem that there are fewer and fewer male elementary school teachers, for example, but the problem here is certainly not that women are having more opportunities than in the past. It is just that women very often moved into the low-paid and less prestigious social jobs, because men had better opportunities. And this is still where it is, in many fields, so men really do not want to go there. Simply raise the pay for elementary school teachers and nurses, and you will see more men there, I am sure… (although these jobs are also a bit of a dead-end, career wise, for most people, so this is also a problem.)
The other cultural problem that I see is the anti-intellectual climate that is often cultivated among boys. This is certainly going to affect academic performance, compared to girls. In my opinion, this is also a problem of sexism in our culture, since there is a lot of pressure on boys to conform to a certain macho picture, and I believe this interferes with their ability and willingness to do academic work. This is clearly an area where sexism hurts men, but of course this is strongly reinforced by the male culture, and I believe that is only ever going to change if men start to perceive it as a problem themselves – i.e. they themselves want to do the work, and feel that they have to fight back against the environment that is holding them back. I don’t think we are at that point, though, so a male-feminist movement might still be some time in coming. (I am not sure I like the word “masculinist”, is this widely used? I never heard it before.)