EDMONTON - Three decades ago, when Lindsay Jantzie’s mother was in medical school, there were just a dozen women in her class of 100.
Even after graduating and establishing herself as a family physician, the female doctor sometimes had trouble gaining respect from male counterparts. At one point, a colleague suggested she should wear glasses to make herself look smarter.
Today, with Jantzie now in medical school, the gender jibes are pointed in an entirely different direction. That’s because her class at the University of Alberta is more than half female.
“There might be an occasional joke like, ‘Boys watch out because the girls are taking over,’ ” says Lindsay, a third-year student hoping to do family medicine like her mom.
“There is definitely nothing holding women back anymore. They have gotten the message they can do anything they want.”
Jantzie’s comment may be something of an understatement.
Historically a minority in the halls of higher learning, female students have not only climbed to equal status, but have now made men the under-represented gender in universities across Canada — a trend that raises some interesting questions about the future of academia.
While some observers suggest the shift is no big deal, others say they are worried about what U of A president Indira Samarasekera calls a “demographic bomb” working its way through the system. The problem is no one seems entirely sure what to do about it.
“The presidents of the major universities are very concerned we are not attracting young men in the numbers we should,” Samarasekera says.
“I got asked recently about special programs to get more women CEOs, and my response was let’s not worry about that because that will come in due course. The bigger worry is that we’ll wake up in 20 years and we will not have the benefit of enough male talent at the heads of companies and elsewhere.”
Usher of the Educational Policy Institute.
Figures from Statistics Canada show females now comprise about 58 per cent of the student body at Canadian universities. The split is about the same in Alberta, where the numbers have held fairly steady for close to 10 years.
The change has not been uniform, however. Efforts continue to get more gender balance into fields like engineering, architecture and computer science, which remain firmly male dominated.
Yet in many other high-prestige programs such as medicine, law and general sciences, male students now frequently occupy less than half the seats. Even smaller percentages go into nursing, education and the social sciences.
“It’s not that there are fewer men going to university,” Usher says. “It’s that mostly all the growth is from females.”
Just how that happened is a question of some debate. While some argue it’s a matter of men simply choosing different career paths, others wonder if there are factors at play making it harder for males to succeed academically.
Explanations have tended to favour the choice argument in Alberta, where it’s believed the trend has been exacerbated by a job market that has lured young men to the oilfield instead of the lecture hall.
“People go where the greatest incentives are,” Usher says. “The argument often made is that the gap in pay between women with a degree and women without a degree is bigger than for men. Therefore, a degree is worth more to women.”
Young men, in general, may be more focused on career prospects than finding something they love to do, adds University of Calgary provost Alan Harrison. Others wonder if males are more adverse to taking on student debt.
“Their way of looking at things is sometimes, ‘If I do political science, what kind of job can I get?’ ” Harrison says. “Female students don’t tend to ask that question quite as much.”
Now that the Alberta economy has weakened, administrators say they are watching to see if young men who skipped post-secondary studies decide to come back to class. Although too early to draw conclusions, preliminary reports indicate some are.
Besides economic incentives, some administrators think there could be more complicated factors discouraging men from academia. One theory notes young men tend to mature more slowly than women, which could mean they are less interested and less prepared for university by the time Grade 12 ends. It could also be they are not getting enough career mentoring as teenagers.
“I am concerned about those young men who just seem to drift,” Grant MacEwan University president Paul Byrne says. “We’re seeing a general trend now where the males who are coming to us are struggling a bit more, and it’s the women who are generally the ones pushing and chasing grades and so on.”
Samarasekera says educational leaders may also need to look at how high schools are structured, because there could be aspects of the system enabling more young women to succeed than young men. Her assertion is backed up by a recent research paper on Canadian youth that indicates male students are something of a “disadvantaged” group. The study suggests some boys are barred from campuses because their marks are insufficient to get in — and even hard work won’t put them on par with their female counterparts.
“Whatever is going on in the high school system rewards girls more than boys,” says Torben Drewes, an economist who led the study.
Officials at Edmonton Public Schools, however, say they see no evidence that one gender is greatly outperforming the other. Nor do they believe girls and boys are treated differently.
But beyond questions of how and why, others are trying to figure out what it all means to have female-friendly universities. So far, there’s little more than speculation.
At medical school, Jantzie says there has been increasing interest from students on not just learning medicine, but also on how to manage a medical career.
“We’ve done talks about taking maternity leave during residency,” she says. “There’s instruction on eating well and surviving the grind. How a physician’s family can be affected by the job. Those lifestyle aspects are reflected more in the teaching.”
While Jantzie believes such curriculum additions may be due to the number of women in the program, classmate Jon Loree isn’t so sure. He says he appreciates learning about work-family balance as much as his female classmates.
“I don’t know how much the (changes) have to do with women. I think it’s more just what students of my generation want today — men and women both,” Loree says.
Looking ahead, there are also questions about how more female graduates might impact various professions. The Alberta government, for example, is currently struggling with a demographic reality that may require a new “rhythm” to health delivery, says U of A provost Carl Amrhein.
“Female doctors want to be mothers and don’t want to work 18 hours, seven days a week the way men historically did, constantly on call.”
Some studies indicate female doctors also tend to treat patients differently. They may, for example, try to spend more time on each case and collaborate with other physicians to treat the patient’s “peripheral” issues, including problems with their family and lifestyle.
But again, there is no way to tell if such differences will persist. The generation of young male doctors now coming into the system is more sensitive to work-family issues and may take the same approach to care as women, says Verna Yiu, an administrator with the U of A’s faculty of medicine and dentistry.
Such qualities could potentially spread into other fields where women have gained on men. Is it possible society could soon produce more compassionate CEOs and lawyers?
While interesting to ponder such potential effects of the demographic shift, some argue there is little reason to care.
“Honestly, I think it’s an overblown issue,” Usher says. “Men have been occupying the senior management positions in the public service, but did that make a difference to society? If you don’t think it did, why would you think women taking over those positions — and they will — will make a difference?”
Penni Stewart, president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, notes that although women now have the edge at the undergraduate level, they are still behind men in many graduate programs, including PhD programs. There are also considerably fewer female professors. Until those numbers change, it’s hard to see any major impacts in store for society, she suggests.
Others, like Samarasekera, remain concerned.
After all, if it was considered a problem when men outnumbered women, shouldn’t it still be a problem in the reverse situation?
Left unchallenged, the shift will eventually lead to a loss of gender diversity in high-profile positions, including CEOs, political leaders, non-profit bosses, administrators and judges — all of whom have profound influence on the world, she says.
The next step, she says, is figuring out what to do about it. To date, answers have been hard to come by.
One idea is that men need more mentoring programs, both at high school and at university. Just as there are programs encouraging women to go into science and engineering, perhaps there should be similar initiatives pushing males into nursing and sociology. Increasing scholarships in those areas may help, or universities could consider new types of curriculum. Perhaps “men’s studies” courses could be offered to match women’s studies?
Samarasekera says the U of A has no plans for a major “recruit men” campaign, but might consider enhanced support services to ensure men properly make the transition from high school.
Universities may also need to make greater efforts to convince young men on the financial benefits of a degree — an argument that may be easier to sell now that the oilfield economy has slowed.
Regardless of what approach is taken, Samarasekera says she can use her position as a university president, a woman and a visible minority to be a leader on the issue.
“I’m going to be an advocate for young white men, because I can be. No one is going to question me when I say we have a problem.”
kgerein@thejournal.canwest.com
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