The Male-Female Education Gap Need Not Impact a Man's Career in Wine
Soon female college graduates will out-number male graduate 2-1
Two avenues are the easiest entry into a career in wine. Hospitality and distributor sales.
These easy avenues were on my mind upon listening to a broadcast of Freakonomics Radio that centered on the fact that as this school year ends, women will obtain 60% of all college degrees. And not too far into the future, if the trends are not reversed, there will be two women for every man graduating from college.
There’s no way to look at these facts and not be worried. There is no way to look at these facts and conclude they are a good thing for our society. And there is no way to look at these facts without wondering about what is happening to our men and boys?
The trend is not new. Women have slowly but surely been out-graduating and out-enrolling men since 1980. But the difference is getting worse and worse every year. In the African American community, the 2-1 women to men college graduate ratio has already been reached. But in general, consider this: Over the past few years colleges and Universities have lost 1.5 million students. Seventy-one (71) percent of those have been men.
The best descriptions of the problem I’ve found are here and here.
I don’t understand why men’s education is in such decline. But I do know that for those men without college degrees, there are two good paths into the wine industry.
Both hospitality (tasting rooms) and distributor sales are those promising avenues. The primary obstacle is going to be knowledge of wine. But this is very easily taken care of without resorting to WSET or other certifications. The fact is, what you need to know about wine is simply more than the average person that level of knowledge is very, very low.
I could give you three books to study that would provide you with more than enough knowledge to out-wine 90% or more of Americans. After that, both the hospitality and the sales position require the same:
Being presentable
Good time management
A willingness to be mentored
Both avenues into wine have jobs available. In fact, both types of positions are actively seeking candidates that can demonstrate some level of wine knowledge and a commitment to working hard and learning.
Of course, depending on how high you want to rise in an organization may require a degree at some point down the road. It will require one to demonstrate communication (writing ad speaking) skills. And it will require management skills.
One thing we know is that the educational gender gap has nothing to do with potential. Women are not naturally smarter than men. Rather, something is impacting motivation among men worldwide as this gap exists internationally..
I have a boy. He’s 8 years old. This may explain why this continuing gap bothers me and has for some time. The only thing that will deter him from higher education is motivation. He’ll have access to the funds for college. He has two parents and an extended family that will make sure he understands the necessity and value of educational achievement both before and during college. And it seems likely that he will grow out of his current phase of wanting to be a YouTuber. He did, after all, grow out of his desire to be a dinosaur wrangler.
What I wonder, though, is just how “out-numbered” he’ll be when he does get to the academy in a little over a decade. My hope is that the gap diminishes by then. If it keeps widening, our culture and society will suffer.