How many times have you read that women’s education is positive, but that it has also contributed to a lower birth rate and the decline of the traditional family, so it’s not actually all that positive?
On closer inspection, however, it’s a little different. The birth rate in Europe has been declining continuously since the industrial revolution, regardless of women’s education. Elsewhere in the world, the same is true. The traditional family was better off in 1950 than in 1900, but worse off in 2000 than in 1950. Did the increase in education after WWII play a role in this? Maybe, but so many things have changed. Why would education be the cause? Especially when you consider that the increase in education before WWI was rather good for family life.
Anda recent study by French sociologists comparing the views of people from 111 countries sheds an entirely different light on the whole matter. They were interested in how much people think that a man should devote himself to his career and a woman to her family. They expected a more traditional division of roles to be preferred in poorer and more backward countries, and equality in richer countries. But it is the other way round! The data shows a strong correlation that the richer the country, the greater the preference for traditional roles.
The researchers brush this off with the comment that even though people have gotten richer, they are left with prejudices, and now (being richer) they can finally put those prejudices into practice. So it’s still just prejudice, so everything is actually fine.
But leaving aside the obligatory platitudes (who would want to be fired from their job as a sexist, right), there is something to it. When a man and a woman both work from morning to night in a factory to keep a family alive, they probably won’t think too much about role division. I’m just worried that it’s not a prejudice that will go away with time.
And questionnaires have a hard time capturing the attitude “It is indeed the man’s duty to take care of the family, but the way the world works is that the girl ends up with no choice but to take care of herself anyway.”