Divorce, gender role, and higher education expansion

In Western societies the past two decades have witnessed a great increase of women's participation in higher education and a multiplication of responsibilities as a result of the expanded role of women. This article examines higher education enrollment between 1970 and 1987 in the United Kingdom and the United States. It is guided by a theoretical model contending that educational expansion occurs where people choose education as an adaptation to increased deprivation and uncertainty. By linking the expanded role of women to the expansion of women's participation in higher education, and by using the rising rate of divorce as an indicator of the increased disenfranchisement among women in patriarchal societies, this study attempts to uncover the hidden forces behind the recent expansion of women's participation in higher education. Multiple regression is used for the statistical analysis. The results show that the divorce rate is positively related to women's enrollment in higher education in the United States. The results also show divergent enrollment patterns between the two sexes regarding the effect of unemployment in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It is argued that gender role expectation is crucial to understanding the different effects of divorce and unemployment on the divergent enrollment patterns of men and women. The article also explores important differences in the areas of educational opportunities, the magnitude of the impact of divorce, government policies regarding women's welfare, and the differing role of credentials in social mobility in the two countries under study.