1926 Sichuan Women's Higher Education Degrees

Item

Title: 1926 Sichuan Women's Higher Education Degrees
Identifier: DS_0008
Description: Bar charts based on the 1926 WCMAB list, comparing the percentage of female missionaries with higher education degrees within and beyond the cohort.
Commentary: These three bar charts are based on the list of 607 missionaries in Sichuan compiled by the West China Missions Advisory Board (WCMAB) in 1926 (see the “Is Part Of” dataset record).

Education constitutes one of the most important indicators of the North American cohort. This bar chart shows the percentage of cohort versus non-cohort women missionaries with the types of higher education degrees recorded in the WCMAB list. Where multiple degrees are given for individuals, their highest degree has been counted. “Medical” includes MDs only, with no dental or pharmacy degrees, and Registered Nurse as a separate category. “Above Bachelors” includes Masters and Doctoral degrees.

A major issue with this data is that some denominations, and possibly stations within denominations, simply did not report women’s degrees. For example, while not one higher education degree is reported among the Baptists, we know anecdotally that at least two of the Baptist wives had Bachelor’s degrees. We have no way of knowing whether other societies neglected to report women’s degrees. Therefore, the numbers of degrees represented are lower than the actual number.

For the first chart in this series, cohort and non-cohort percentages have been calculated separately based on the numbers of women in each group (Cohort n241; Non-cohort n152). Not surprisingly, given these numbers include both reported and unreported degrees, a large majority of both cohort (64%) and non-cohort (87%) missionary women are seen to have no higher education degree. However, the non-cohort group has a much higher percentage. Remarkably, both groups have almost the same percentages of “Above Bachelors” degrees, while the cohort women lead in all other categories.

The second chart breaks down the numbers among the cohort and non-cohort missionary women with reported degrees according to marital status (n104). Here we can see that within the cohort the percent of single (35%) versus married (34%) women with degrees is almost the same. In contrast, among non-cohort women, over twice the number of single women (21%) have degrees compared to the married women (10%). This probably reflects the more conservative gender roles among non-cohort denominations.

The third chart in the series breaks down the data on women with reported degrees by cohort/non-cohort, marital status and specific degree. Cohort and non-cohort percentages have been calculated out of the total number of reported degrees (n102). Again we see the cohort women outnumbering their non-cohort counterparts. This arrangement allows us to also measure the impact of marital status on the particular degrees that woman achieved. More single women have Master’s and medical degrees (total 29.5%) compared with only 5.5% of married women, and only single women are reported for RN (14%). On the other hand, more married women (39%) than single women (27%) have liberal arts Bachelor’s degrees.

Although unclear regarding the non-cohort women, the cohort women clearly have larger percentages of higher education degrees than the populations of their home countries at large. For example, in the 1920 US census, which was the first to record education status, only 5.7% of the population had a “bachelor’s degree or higher” (and this includes 1.2% African Americans, none of whom were West China missionaries) (1). The same census records the number of people in school by age and gender. At 18 years of age (roughly college age), about 22% of men and 25% of women were attending school. At age 20, these numbers had dropped to 8% of women and 10% of men (2). Notably, the proportion of men to women is reversed. This measure also captures statistics for men and women who have some college education, but did not complete degrees, which we know anecdotally to be the case for many missionary women.
Creator: Cory Willmott
Date Created: 2024
Is Part Of: The West China Missions Advisory Board’s Directory 1926, According to Missions
Provenance: Original scholarship by Cory Willmott.
Access Rights: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher: SIUE
Record Date: 2024-11-06
Contributor: Cory Willmott
Type: Dataset
Bibliographic Citation: (1) National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). 2013. Table 104.20. Percentage of persons 25 to 29 years old with selected levels of educational attainment, by race/ethnicity and sex: Selected years, 1920 through 2013; https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_104.20.aspm; (2) United States Census Bureau. 1924. An Analysis of School Attendance in the United States and in the Several States, with a Discussion of the Factors Involved, Charts 1 and 2.; https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1924/dec/monograph-5.html

Item sets: Datasets

Media: DS_0008a 1926 Women's Higher Education Degrees.png; DS_0008b 1926 Women's Higher Education.png; DS_0008c 1926 Women's Higher Education.png

Linked resources

Filter by resource type and property:

Items with "Has Part: 1926 Sichuan Women's Higher Education Degrees"
Title	Class
The West China Missions Advisory Board’s Directory 1926, According to Missions	Dataset