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Sophanmay Hang
Date: 9/18/15
Focused Inquiry 112
All of the collected data will raise the question on whether education
attainment would have a significant effect on getting employed for both males and
females in the United States.
A topic that seems to reoccur is the disparity between males and females in the
work field in today society. Many data and researches have shown that the number of
employed females is still a lot less than employed males. This can be hard to wrap our
heads around because it has been said many time that women tend to have a higher
education rate than men. In order to prove whether education attainment will have an
effect on getting employed for males and females, I researched a few data in order to
create graph below.
In figure 1, comparison between males and females on education attainment
has been shown. The blue bar represents females whereas the red bar represents
males. It is clears that women have a higher education attainment than men. 31522
women over the age of 25 have attainted high school degree vs. 30718 men at the
same age. 18462 women over the age of 25 have attained some college/no degree vs.
16457 men at the same age. And 22157 women over the age of 25 have attained
bachelor’s degree vs. 20099 men at the same age. You can see that there is a
significant difference among these numbers between males and females. Women
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attained more education, and therefore women should have a higher employment rate.
Is this the case?
Figure 3 seems to prove that theory wrong. In August 2014, there are 66289
employed women vs. 75668 employed. In August 2015, there are 76502 vs. 76880
employed men. It’s very critical to take notice that the numbers of employed men are
indeed higher than the number of employed women. While these numbers do increase
for women over the year, but it goes the same to employed men. So there seem to be
that big gap remained between men and women that is significant enough for us to be
aware of and take to consideration.
So can education attainment have a significant effect on getting employed for
both males and females in the United States? According to the data that has been
collected below, the answer is simply – no, it doesn’t. There is huge number of
women who attainment more education than men but yet men still seem to dominate
the work force. In conclusion, as of today and according to these data, a woman can
get a higher education than men but still have a lesser chance of getting employed
compare to a man.
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Numbers of Males and Females in Education
Attaintment of 25 Years and Over in 2014
Number of Males and Females
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
Number of Females
Number of Males
10000
5000
0
High School
Degree
Some College no Bachelor's Degree
degree
Education Attaintment
Figure 1
Education Attainment of 25 Years and Over
High School Degree
Some College no degree
Bachelor's Degree
Figure 2
Number of Females
31522
18462
22157
Number of Males
30718
16457
20099
4
Number of Empoyed Males and Females
Number of Employed Males and Female, 20 Years
and Over in August 2014 and August 2015
78000
76000
74000
72000
70000
68000
Females
66000
Males
64000
62000
60000
Males and Females in Aug 2014 Males and Females in Aug 2015
Employed Males and Females
Figure 3
Males and Females in Aug 2014
Females - 66289
Males - 75668
Figure 4
Males and Females in Aug 2015
Females - 67502
Males - 76880
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In order to create the graph below, I used two different sources:
o http://www.bls.gov/ (United State Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor
Statistic)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic was able to give me an up-to-date numbers of
people who are currently employed and unemployed in the United States; in
my case I specifically looked into the employment numbers between males
and females. Because this data is frequently updated, the numbers will
increase or decrease; but it’s very unlikely that a significant change could
accord in a short period of time.
o http://www.census.gov/ (United States Census Bureau)
United States Census Bureau was able to give me a number of males and
females who have gain specific education attainments in 2014. I particularly
choose to look at both sexes who have attainted high school degrees, some
college but no degrees, and bachelor’s degrees. By looking at this data and
creating graphs for it, I will able to compare whether education attainments
would have a significant effect on getting employed for both males and
females.