pandora's box meets otago

[m.k. scanlon]

I was looking through the Occupational Outlook Quarterly  (bib ref
below).  Daniel Hecker authored a study entitled "Earnings and Major
Field of Study of COllege Graduates".  While his study does not get as
detailed as Slavic Languages,  he does include Foreign Languages and
Linguistics as one of the 31 major fields ranked.  THESE STATS ARE FOR
THOSE WITH BACHELOR'S DEGREES ONLY. He split the earnings of these
graduates by gender.That's where the Pandora's Box comes in.

THE GOOD NEWS  (for women) :
The gender gap in wages is much less pronounced in the bottom quintile
and at the median for lang/ling majors,  and at the top quintile is
among the lowest of the gaps (lowest is 3k, highest 28k).

GOOD NEWS FOR WOMEN (sort of) THE BAD NEWS FOR GUYS:

For women,   the median earnings of foreign lang/ling majors placed 18th
out of 31, for men,  29th out of 31.

            lowest quintile       median        4th quintile

FOREIGN LANG/LING
women        22,453               32,112            44,638
men          23,141               32,346            52,943

ALL MAJORS
women        22,339               31,848            45,397
men          29,373               43,856            65,193


I am wondering now how much the perceived presence or lack of jobs is
influenced by the gender of those making the judgement about what
constitutes a viable opportunity with a decent (for his/her gender)
wage.

In addition, is there any way to use this as a selling point to women or
will this end up "ghettoizing" foreign languages/linguistics? Sell it as
a major for women, minor for men? Why does this sound like a bad idea?
kscanlon at flash.net

Occupational Outlook Quarterly,  SUMMER  1996  Office of Employment
Projections, Bureau of Labor Statistics,US Dept. of Labor  ISSN
0199-4786