Looking for love: Research suggests women are find it more and more difficult to find men of a similar social status. |
Women are overtaking men in education and in the workplace, a senior Government minister said yesterday – creating a new generation of stay-at-home fathers. Universities minister David Willetts predicted relationships and traditional household structures will be transformed as the fairer sex powers ahead, and women earn more than their male partners. Successful women will have to ‘marry down’ by choosing partners less qualified than them – and may increasingly select men based on how supportive they might be to their careers, rather than whether they can support them financially. And experts say women will often become the main breadwinners, with more men staying at home to look after children. Mr Willetts said there was clear evidence from schools that boys are ‘lagging behind’, and are being overtaken by female students at university. He said: ‘I am not against women having those advantages but there is now a rather striking gap, if you look at the statistics, where it looks as if approximately 50 percent of women are graduating from university by the time they’re 30 and perhaps about 40 percent of men.’ He added: ‘It may lead to changes in the patterns of household living. So there are some deep questions here.’ The Philadelphia-based Pew Research Centre study, published in The Atlantic magazine, suggests female graduates are being put in similar situation to that faced for some time by black women. In America, 70 percent of black women have no husband and there are twice as many black women as black men with university degrees. Many educated British women believe there is already a dearth of traditional husbands. Claire Davis, 33, who works in financial services and lives in south London, told The Times: 'I have a good job, my own flat and I can pretty much do what I want, but a lot of the men I meet aren't really of the right calibre. 'If I look at the friends I went to university with, the men don't tend to be doing as well as the women.' (Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
英國(guó)一位政府高級(jí)官員昨日透露,英國(guó)女性在受教育程度和職場(chǎng)上正在趕超男性,這將早就新一代“全職爸爸”。 大學(xué)事務(wù)大臣戴維?威利茨預(yù)言,隨著女性快速前進(jìn),加之收入超過(guò)男性伴侶,婚戀關(guān)系和傳統(tǒng)的家庭結(jié)構(gòu)將發(fā)生轉(zhuǎn)變。 成功女性將不得不選擇不如自己的男性“下嫁”, 而且將可能越來(lái)越多地根據(jù)男性是否能支持自己發(fā)展事業(yè),而不是根據(jù)男性能否提供經(jīng)濟(jì)后盾來(lái)選擇伴侶。 專家稱女性將更多地成為家庭的主要經(jīng)濟(jì)支柱,同時(shí)會(huì)有更多男性待在家中照看小孩。 威利茨說(shuō),有來(lái)自學(xué)校的明顯證據(jù)表明,男孩們正在“落后”,在大學(xué)里他們也同樣被女生趕超。 他說(shuō):“我不反對(duì)女性有這些優(yōu)勢(shì),但現(xiàn)在兩性間的差距相當(dāng)顯著,從數(shù)據(jù)來(lái)看,約有50%的女性在30歲前從大學(xué)畢業(yè),而大學(xué)畢業(yè)的男性大概只有40%。 他補(bǔ)充說(shuō):“這可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致家庭生活的模式發(fā)生變化。所以這里存在著一些深層次的問(wèn)題?!?/p> 費(fèi)城的皮尤調(diào)查中心的這一研究指出,女大學(xué)畢業(yè)生的處境與一段時(shí)期以來(lái)黑人女性所遭遇的困境相似。該研究發(fā)表在《大西洋月刊》上。 在美國(guó),70%的黑人女性沒(méi)有丈夫,而擁有大學(xué)學(xué)位的黑人女性的人數(shù)是黑人男性的兩倍。 許多受過(guò)教育的英國(guó)女性認(rèn)為,傳統(tǒng)型的丈夫已經(jīng)很稀缺。 在金融服務(wù)業(yè)工作、住在倫敦南部的33歲的克萊爾?戴維斯告訴《泰晤士報(bào)》說(shuō):“我擁有一份好工作,擁有自己的公寓,我基本上可以做自己想做的事情,但是我遇到的許多男性卻和我不是同一水平的人?!?/p> “回想一下那些一起上大學(xué)的同學(xué),男生的成績(jī)一般都沒(méi)有女生好。” 相關(guān)閱讀 美國(guó)高學(xué)歷女性人數(shù)首度超過(guò)男性 英國(guó)調(diào)查:高學(xué)歷女性大多晚育 巾幗不讓須眉 女性領(lǐng)導(dǎo)能力優(yōu)于男性 (中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 陳丹妮 編輯:Julie) |
Vocabulary: the fairer sex: 女性(總稱) power: 快速前進(jìn) dearth: 缺乏,不足 calibre: 水平,程度 |