Gender Differences in Educational & Occupational Aspirations

As the Women’s Movement and feminism continue to affect the lives of girls and boys, women and men, questions arise regarding the aspirations and ultimate choices for both sexes in education and work. Females have been encouraged to broaden their sights in the occupational marketplace by choosing historically male occupations that come with higher status and salaries. Societal messages to males regarding occupational sex-typing have changed little. Would males, if faced with more competition in male-dominated occupations, choose to enter more traditionally female occupations? Have the larger sex role changes affected racial minority student aspirations, given they too have historically found impediments to entering the higher status and salaried occupations? Results from a 5% sample of all 1976 and 1986 U.S. high school students who took the ACT (American College Testing) exam and Interest Inventory were analyzed for changes in aspired to college majors and occupations. Five percent of the total population resulted in sample sizes of 34,590 students for 1976 and 36,485 in 1986.