Back to school! Taking advantage of the recession, American women have good prospects for studying.

Back to school! Taking advantage of the recession, American women have good prospects for studying. (Alberta Times) The U.S. economy is in a slump, so many young women have temporarily left the workplace and returned to school to receive higher education...

(Alberta Times)

The U.S. economy is in a slump, so many young women have taken a break from the workplace and returned to school to receive higher education. Economists predict that in the long run, the next generation of women will fare far better than men. The New York Times reported that the U.S. labor force is shrinking, and economists believe that it is mostly older workers who are withdrawing from the job market due to frustration. Research has found that many of the people who have temporarily left the workplace are young people, and the majority of them are women. As a result, a phenomenon that has only been seen in 30 years has emerged - there are more women in school than working women in the United States. While women in their late 20s or early 20s see the economic downturn as an opportunity to improve their skills, many young men are struggling to find jobs and have nothing to do. Economists say the result is that the next generation of women will have a far greater employment advantage than men. This fall, 24-year-old Laura Baker became a student in the Master of Strategic Communication class at the University of Denver. She worked part-time at Starbucks Coffee for a year and a half. She didn't want to continue working part-time, so she returned to school. "The class is almost exclusively female," she said. "It may have something to do with the nature of the courses, but it's also because women believe they must receive higher education in order to compete with men in all areas." Women's salaries are still much lower than men's. In the two and a half years since the U.S. officially announced economic recovery, 178,000 men aged 16 to 24 have found job opportunities, while 255,000 women of the same age have lost their jobs. Apparently frustrated by low employment opportunities, 412,000 young women have dropped out of the labor market entirely in the past two and a half years. Research shows that women are more selective than men when choosing a job. Women who already have lower wages will be less willing to work once their wages are cut again, especially those who have husbands to rely on. Willis, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, said: "No matter how bad the job is, men are more willing to give in no matter the reason." U.S. community college enrollment continues to hit records. Both men and women are returning to school, but women are far more likely to do so. In the past two and a half years, the number of women aged 18 to 24 has increased by 130,000, while the number of young men has only increased by 53,000. In addition to the education gap, another reason why women will have a higher employment advantage than men in the next ten years is that many occupations with high growth prospects, such as home health aides and dental hygienists, are traditionally female occupations. On the other hand, employment opportunities in manufacturing and some industries related to physical strength, where men are mostly male, are generally bearish in the future.