Summary: Overall, this is a pretty bland article, but it seems to indicate that cultural attitudes toward the CF/CL are changing. The one surprising statistic--for me--was the one about women with advanced degrees being MORE likely to have children and those without a HS diploma being LESS likely. That's a new one on me, unless I mis-read that part.
I'm off to read the comments now.
Click here for the full story.
Jen M.
One paragraph reads:
"Although the trend largely held true across races, ethnicities and education levels, one exception was among women with advanced degrees -- a master's or higher -- who were more likely to give birth."
Then another paragraph says:
"Overall, the report found that white women are more likely to be childless, as are women with more education. The analysis, based largely on census data, comes amid changing attitudes about women who do not have children."
Which is it? Talk about contradicting yourself.
I read one page of comments. They run about 90% fruit loops to 10% of sound mind. Guess which ones are breeding like cockroaches.
The data is not contradictory. It means people OTHER THAN highly educated women are choosing to live child-free, meaning the overall trend is that CF-ness is advancing. But highly educated women, for some reason, are choosing children now.
My take on the reason? -- we live in our ivory towers, concentrating on our narrow disciplines, that we haven't caught up with what other women have figured out. Which is that you can't have it all. Also, in some universities, children are status symbols -- not so much to the professoriate, but to administration. So, if you want to advance beyond teaching/research, you need the trophies.
That first one is exactly the one that confused me.
The contradiction does not help, but I tend to believe the latter is true, as it is THAT statistic I have seen across many different articles and studies.
It's just plain bad writing. WaPo has been making a lot of cuts, so the quality of the reporting and writing has gone way downhill.
Jen M.
(06-25-2010 10:32 PM)Dog Holliday Wrote: [ -> ]One paragraph reads:
"Although the trend largely held true across races, ethnicities and education levels, one exception was among women with advanced degrees -- a master's or higher -- who were more likely to give birth."
Then another paragraph says:
"Overall, the report found that white women are more likely to be childless, as are women with more education. The analysis, based largely on census data, comes amid changing attitudes about women who do not have children."
Which is it? Talk about contradicting yourself.
PG, as disgusting as that is, it makes perfect sense.
Thanks.
Jen