More African American women participate in higher education than
African American men, and the gap is widening. In 1995, there were
556,000 African American men enrolled as students in all institutions
of higher education at all levels of matriculation, compared to 918,000
African American women. The growth in the number of African American
women also exceeded the growth rate among African American men.
While the enrollment imbalance does not translate into a wage gap
— primarily because of the participation of women in typically female
jobs — the enrollment gap has socioeconomic consequences for students
and for African American society at large.
Because more sisters are enrolled, more are also earning degrees at
every level and in almost every field. But the gaps are narrower in
some fields than others, and reflect the stereotypes and pipeline
challenges that sisters face in some fields — especially in
engineering and the sciences. For example, while African American women
— recipients of 53,000 bachelor’s degrees in 1994 — received 72
percent more of these degrees than the 31,000 degrees awarded to
African American men, in just the biological and life sciences, the gap
— at 53 percent — was smaller.
Is it simple propensity that has more Black women seeking degrees
in education, the social sciences, and the health professions, or are
sisters being subtly guided away from the sciences and into more
“typically female” fields? Given the fact that African American women
receive five bachelor’s degrees for every three that men earn, why do
they receive just two undergraduate engineering degrees for every three
that men earn?
The gap is even wider for engineers at the master’s level, where
682 degrees were awarded to African Americans in 1994 — 493 to men and
189 to women. Overall, African American women receive two-thirds of all
of the masters degrees awarded, but in engineering we receive just 28
percent of the degrees.
Gaps are as wide at the Ph.D. level, where just a handful of
African Americans are receiving science and engineering degrees. In
1995, according to the American Council on Education, there were 102
Ph.D. degrees awarded to African Americans in the physical sciences and
another 102 in engineering. In the life sciences, 290 African A
mericans received Ph.D. degrees.
In contrast, almost 500 degrees were awarded in social sciences and
humanities, and more than 660 degrees were awarded in education.
Although a gender breakdown is not available by field, it is not
difficult to extrapolate from master’s degree gaps that African
American women collected few of the hard science degrees.
