Feminism is the "single biggest factor" explaining the lack of jobs for working men, Great Britain's universities minister David Willetts said last week. The tendency for well-educated women to marry well-educated men has created a polarized sorting effect that both hurts working-class men and widened the gap in household incomes.

"It is delicate territory, because it is not a bad thing that women had these opportunities," Willetts said, as quoted by the Guardian. "But it widened the gap in household incomes, because you suddenly had two-earner couples, both of whom were well-educated, compared with often workless households where nobody was educated."

Willetts is wrong to attribute the UK's high unemployment rate to women's education gains, said Heidi Hartmann, president of the Washington-based Institute for Women's Policy Research. But he's right about well-educated women pairing off with well-educated men.

"Marriage is a sorting effect," she said. "Highly educated women are more likely to work, earn high wages, and marry highly educated men. That might increase income inequality."



But educated women are earning bread for low-income families too, she added. In the U.S., low-income women go to college more than low-income men, and their college premium -- the life-long wage bonus we get from attending college -- raises their earnings potential against men. In other words, women's education gains are making us all richer, but the rich are getting richer faster.

