WOMEN IN AGRICULTURAL PROFESSIONS

About 15 years ago a national effort was mounted to provide equal employment opportunity to any person based on the individual's qualifications without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, age or national origin . This effort included executive orders which contained guidelines for hiring, promotions, transfers and discharges. 1 The orders sp_ecified that additional job opportunities would be made available to persons who had not previously been given adequate opportunities. What has been occurring in the opportunities for employment of women since these executive orders and affirmative action were initiated? Are the national efforts to improve equal opportunities being noted in various professions, especially agricultural subject matter disciplines? This question can be partially answered by examining enrollments in Agriculture and employment of female graduates. 2 At a time when college enrollments generally have been leveling off or declining, enrollments in agricultural colleges have been increasing. Additionally the agricultural schools are attracting two groups of students who were not attracted in the past-women and city or suburban dwellers. Enrollments in the agricultural schools of the 72land-grant colleges has risen to 98,519 in 1977, up 52 percent from five years before a!ld more than double the figure of a decade ago. The number of women enrolled in these schools had risen to 30,989, about 30 percent of total en.rollment, and up from 13,953 which was abou t 19 percent of the total four years earlier. Thus, women have penetrated into fields considered non-traditional (Angrist, Carnigie Commission, Gordon). To improve on the levels of understanding about job opportunities and problems that are encountered by women in agriculture, adequate and current data are needed. Further, basic information is needed to provide competent and effective counseling and guidance to women students in agriculture. A major purpose of this study was to determine relatively how many females graduated from 1970 through 1976 in agricu 1tural economics, agricultural education and agricultural engineering by utilizing the number of male graduates for comparative purposes. Library research indicated a lack of data on the number of female graduates in such disciplines at the various institutions in the United States. In view of this circumstance it was decided that the study would be based on surveys. Both department chairmen and women graduates were surveyed .