The principal effect of professional education of women who are not going to have full working careers is to reduce the contribution of professional schools to the output of professional services. Not that the professional education the women who drop out of the workforce receive is worthless; if it were, such women would not enroll. Whether the benefit these women derive consists of satisfying their intellectual curiosity, reducing marital search costs, obtaining an expected income from part-time work, or obtaining a hedge against divorce or other economic misfortune, it will be on average a smaller benefit than the person (usually a man) whose place she took who would have a full working career would obtain from the same education.Read the whole thing before getting completely steamed at Posner. He's got an elaborate incentive scheme that avoids sex discrimination. The words "raise tuition" jumped out at me.
UPDATE: I think there is strong pressure on law schools to maintain an even balance of male and female students. It is because of this, not worries about full-time motherhood, that new preferences for males are likely to creep into the process.
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Once again, it seems to boin down to the question of liberal education vs. trade school. Posner's assertion is probably true to the degree that colleges have devolved into trade schools that shy away from giving a broad-based, liberal education based upon improvement of the self. Whether such a system ever existed is open to debate, but I can attest that I'm surely not getting it here in Champaign.
If the primary reason for college is self-improvement, than there is nothing lost by women removing themselves from the workforce. But if colleges are really just trade schools, the positions occupied by people who leave the workforce (female or male) may be better filled elsewhere.
Not being a woman - or a graduate from an elite professional school - I am not so much 'steamed' by his seamingly, chauvinistic attitude as I am by his cold and clinical analysis of men and women, families and children.
It appears to me that he places a disproportionate amount of emphasis on how much one makes as an indicator of 'social value'.
Lastly, given his clinical analysis and focus on money, it appears that the primary goal of an elite, professional school is to create alumni that can deliver the cash back to the school. I feel better knowing that society is getting this 'value'.
I took the argument to mean any post-graduate studies or studies at prestigious universities. I agree that medical school or law school shouldn't be a broad-based liberal training, nor thought of as one. But I don't think Posner's argument encompasses just that. Is going after a history doctorate or English doctorate qualify as professional? Probably not. And how about, like you mentioned, undergraduate studies at, say, Harvard or Princeton? These are definitely not professional studies alone, but I think Posner intends his argument to extend to these as well.
I think his argument holds true to whatever degree these institutions fail in their capacity to offer a liberal education and relegate themselves to the position of trade schools.
I am not surprised that Posner's suggestions make some livid. But he does ask some very good questions, starting with what is the purpose of a professional college, like a law school or a medical school?
If you start with the hypothesis that the purpose of these institutions is to train professionals for work in society, then I think his questions naturally follow. After all, while that woman with the Yale JD may be benefitting her (typically two) kids, how is this benefitting society? Esp. compared with the work that somone who stayed in the work force would contribute?
On the other hand, if the purpose of professional postgraduate education is personal growth, then I would think that these schools would want to rethink their admission policies.
Ann, you indicated that you were livid here, but I have really only heard his side of the argument. What is yours - or that of other women in your position?
Would there be a concern if the role was reversed, if it was found that many men didn't enter and stay in the workforce after graduation from a prestigious university?
What would the professional school dynamic be if qualities such as common sense, ability to multi-task, ability to carry on a conversation with collegeaues (and spell), desire to participate in professional organizations and help advance the professional were taken into consideration at admission? This place would be much more enjoyable if the admissions committee had taken these things into consideration. If only we could institute a "test" that would quantify these qualities. I think bad professionals (one's who only practice for money) is a much larger problem than if all women don't practice to their full potential.
LeeOnTheRoad
I do think that Posner is right though about assortive mating now taking place in college, in graduate school, and in the work environment. The problem with debutants is that that happens much too early any more. And the women who go to Finishing Schools are at a disadvantage to women who attend class with the men - hence (IMHO), the demise of most of these schools.
I have often told my daughter that if she wanted to marry a doctor, the best place to meet him would be in medical school, and the best place to meet a lawyer is in law school.
(But while Posner seems to agree with me there, he questions the relative social utility of that).
Jillene
You seem to be suggesting that men are more mercenary than women in their work, but really don't back that up. I would suggest the possibility of just the opposite - that since men identify themselves more with their professions than women tend to, that they would tend to be better in this respect. Obviously, I have no more facts than you do, and am only throwing this out as a counter-hypothesis.
Multitasking might be advantageous in some aspects of the law, but arguably is counter productive in others, such as mine, patent law, primarily because concentration level and ability to multitask seem to be negatively correlated. When you are writing a patent application, it is advantageous to NOT get distracted by anything else.
As for spelling, since I am one of the primary offenders here, I will suggest that while this may have been important in a previous age, it isn't any more, given how good spell checkers are. I don't usually spell check here because such a tool is not readily available. When it is, I use it.
That said, I should note that it is likely that the type of standardized tests that are used for admission to most schools these days do not test either multitasking or common sense, and, indeed, the former may almost be a disadvantage when taking such tests, as the person who can concentrate more would seem more likely to excel.
Lee(again)
The problem with law schools is that their position in the hierarchy is hotly contested. Even mid tier schools are turning away potential students who could do the work and be competitive. Taking into account an applicant's potential benefit to society as posited by Posner would most likely shift students throughout the range of all law schools.
I frankly don't know if medical school is comparable. There, a doc's residency seems more important than where he went to medical school - but the better residencies are as competitive, if not more so, than getting into the top big firms after law school. I have one friend who rejects almost 100 docs for every one he accepts in his residency program. The problem he faces is that they can't look at each applicant in detail, given the numbers involved, and by necessity look to such metrics as medical school and graduation rank when doing the initial cut (from 100-1 to 10-1).
Bruce-
I have no ill-will towards men and frankly, don't think they are important in this arguement. I was merely questioning whether it would be two sided.
I am not in law and know little about it or the rigors that it's students may endure. I can only imagine that are as difficult as mine.
Common sense being an important issue, a passion for the profession and its advancement is equally important. It is obvious that many of us here have that passion because we have branched out, but many are lacking. In my profession women are starting to run the show because there is a high proportion of us. Will that be affected by some of us working part-time or not at all? Inevitably. However, we have all worked very hard to get to our respective positions and giving that up will be difficult.
Advancement will just take more time and manpower to conquer.
Posner's proposal has some merits. I like the rebate idea -- that tuition goes up, but those who work full-time (thus making the most of their degrees) get some kind of rebate.
Many churches face problems similar to this -- they are getting fewer years out of their seminary graduates, thus calling into question the degree to which they wish to subsidize their seminaries. In recent years, people have been entering seminary later in life. I also suspect that current graduates leave the ministry for some other line of work at a rate higher than in the past.
I'm also interested in the issue of gender balance. While an elite graduate program can probably maintain a 50/50 split, I suspect that second and third tier programs would be hard-pressed to maintain gender balance in light of the unbalanced makeup of undergraduate education.
Again, the elite schools probably have an easier time of this, so the NYT is not likely to notice, but I've heard that 55/45 is getting to be the norm in some liberal arts colleges. That's 55% female, 45% male. And I've heard whispers that "balance" is only maintained because standards are lower for male applicants.
In the '60s, students complained that liberal education prepared them for nothing in the real world, so colleges responded by becoming more trade-schoolish. Now the tide is turning back towards the benefits (highly debatable) of a liberal arts education, at least for undergrads.
A professional school, though, as someone else said, mainly does prepare students for employment. That being said, when life spans have increased to the point where one's working life is 40 years, do we know yet the social impact of recent women professionals dropping out of the work force? Income is not an accurate measurement of that: A part-time pro bono advocate could conceivably have much of a societal impact than a full time PI attorney.
I think Posner is more concerned about the value to the institution (alumni donors) that social value.
J pfeiffer - In the legal profession, Judge Posner is famous, if not world famous, for applying exactly that sort of cold, bloodless analysis to the cases that come before him on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
A lot of people -- at least in my law school classes -- have a problem with that method of analysis. I don't see it as wrong-headed, just not necessarily the means I would use to decide a case. Also, there is often a lot of debate about how he defines economic efficiency and so forth.
I stand corrected on assortive mating - though my definition was not that far off. I was really talking more a stratification mating, or proximity mating, than assortive. This is what comes from trying to understand terms from context versus actually looking them up. Sorry.
Though, it probably doesn't make that much difference here. If admissions policies are changed to admit, for example, more men at the top schools, their average IQ may be a little less, but not that much, so, those marrying those that they meet in school are going to still probably be within range of assortive mating.
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