I study social demography that is interested in explaining social phenomena from a demographic perspective, particularly focusing on "the size, territorial distribution, and composition of population, changes therein, and the components of such changes" (Hauser and Duncan 1959). As a social demographer, my educated first hunch is related to compositional effects. UTokyo or other prestigious national universities have focused on engineering and natural sciences rather than humanities or social sciences. This emphasis on science is related to their historical origin as imperial universities that educated people who would contribute to the country's industrialization, although it also fostered students who will maintain the national bureaucratic system.
Out of 3,125 students enrolled in UTokyo this year, for example, 37% of them were enrolled in Science major group 1 (理科1類), 18% were group 2 (理科2類), and 3% were group 3 (理科3類). In total, about 60% of students are expected to major in STEM (Science, Technology, Engeneering, and Mathematics, an abbreviation for majors that are perceived as more like a hard science) fields. In contrast, other equivalently competitive private universities such as Waseda or Keio, the proportion of STEM students is smaller than the non-STEM students. Since women are less prevalent in these STEM fields, I believe this compositional difference in fields of study is one of the reasons why top national universities have suffered from the underrepresentation of female students.
2. Expected financial costs for living in metropolitan areas.
Sex ratio also differs within top national universities (e.g., % female is 25% for Tohoku and 30% for Kyushu). My second hunch related to this is that parents' expected costs for their children living in metropolitan areas differ by children's sex. Specifically, parents expect to spend more expenditure on their daughters' living expenses than that of sons. Housing cost, for example, tends to be higher in Tokyo than in other areas as you can imagine. It seems UTokyo has noticed about this point, and once they decided to provide stipends for housing to female students (announcement). One unfortunate news following the announcement was a backlash against this policy, not only from male students but also female ones. Their rationale was that, as far as I understand correctly, it violates the equal opportunity. I may need to discuss the difference between equality and equity at some point, but this backlash reminded me that Japanese college students, at least ones in competitive schools, still believe that no consideration should be made for making it to college or college admission.
3. Gender difference in "second try"
As in other East Asian countries, our college admission system is mainly performed by the entrance exam. First, almost all applicants who want to study at national universities have to take a national-wide exam (センター試験) and based on their scores, a limited number of students are allowed to take exams held by each university. For national university exams, they usually provide a few chances and applicants are allowed to take only one or two schools for their exam each year. In contrast, private universities have their own exams in different schedules, and applicants have no limitations to take exams (as long as money allows).
This means that some applicants fail to pass the exam (like I did) and they were not allowed to get into the national university. If this happens, they usually have two choices - leave or stay. If you leave, they usually go to a private university they are interested in. If they stay, they will take the same exam next year. We call them Ronin [浪人]. In the past (and this is the case to some extent nowadays), there was a prejudice towards women who are interested to take the second option, because four-year university education was perceived to be male-typed. I hope this prejudice does not exist anymore or at least significantly declined, but still women are less likely to take the Ronin. UTokyo or other top national universities are competitive, so a sizable number of students (around 20-30% I guess) are Ronin. This also explains the skewed sex ratio at UTokyo.
4. Preference for majors that provide occupation related qualifications
Related to the point above, female students are more likely to prefer studying majors that are linked to some credentials such as pharmacists, nurses, or doctors. Being an engineer or scientist is still risky for women in Japan, because they often experience a career interruption (for various reasons, such as childbearing or spouse's transfer to branches in local areas). Occupational credentials make their life-course more secure (or predictable). Although anecdotal (thus this is something I need to test), I often hear that some competitive women in rural areas go to medical schools close to their hometown, rather than going to selective national universities including UTokyo. The point is that they are qualified enough (or will be qualified in their second try) to study at Todai, but they do not apply.
5. Sex segregation in high school - only male private schools in Tokyo
If you see the top 10 or 20 high schools that send their students to Todai, most are private schools in Tokyo that only admit male students. These top high schools, Kaisei, Azabu, Musashi, often have junior high schools and they only (or mostly) accept applicants through junior high school admissions, so many parents (or children themselves, although I'm doubting) send their kids, around in their 9-10 years old, to cram schools to prepare for the exam. I suspect that social environments in these high schools encourage male students to think that making it to Todai as not-too-far. This is simply a peer effect story one would say, in the sense that they often interact with friends, many of whom also think about going to the same school. My hunch is that going to these schools has a causal (this is important) effect on making it to Todai, especially for those who are close to the cutoff line on the entrance exams. The ideal experiment would be a random assignment of (equally qualified students) to these top male high schools and other regular, mixed-sex, high schools with similar competitiveness.
6. Sex segregation in high school - only female schools cooling students' aspiration
The opposite story is the case for some female-only high schools. Although they also only accept students through junior high school admission and they are equally competitive with male-only top private schools, the output looks quite different except for a few schools. A good example of this is Kobe College High School. This female-only high school is one of the national top private high schools in Kobe, a western part of Japan. While its competitiveness is almost equal to Nada high school, where each year a large number (about 40%) of students are admitted to University of Tokyo or Kyoto University, students at Kobe are far less likely to choose these selective schools. I suspect that their education has a so-called "cooling" effect that mitigates students' aspirations to study at top universities. Their education might emphasize the femininity or the role of "good mothers." Their parents might be selective in terms of their preference for daughters' education. Although the mechanisms should be examined further, they might have the mitigating effect on the aspiration for selective colleges.
7. Parents expectation for their daughters to live close
8. Lack of role model
9. Gender difference in risk taking
10. Gender difference in expected returns to attending top schools
No comments:
Post a Comment