Dynamic Social Norms and the Unexpected Transformation of Women’s Higher Education, 1965–1975

Abstract

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the gender divide in American higher education narrowed rapidly as women shifted their aims from homemaking to careers. The dynamic-social-norms hypothesis explains why we observe unexpected and rapid rather than gradual change in women’s education and employment. The explanation draws on a theory of social change developed by Timur Kuran that predicts revolutionary rather than incremental shifts in social norms. Critical to the argument is the claim that in some settings the choices of individuals depend in part on the choices of others. In the presence of interdependencies, the potential exists for unexpected and rapid transformations, such as that occurring in higher education between 1965 and 1975.

Predicting social tipping and norm change in controlled experiments

“…Predicting when social tipping and norm change will occur has posed a major challenge for social scientists ( 15 , 16 ): “Anyone claiming to know for sure when a particular tipping point will be reached should be treated with suspicion” ( 24 ). A striking example is the sudden disappearance of the gender gap in American higher education in the early 1970s: “The speed at which women moved from the margins to the mainstream of higher education took even knowledgeable observers by surprise” ( 25 ). While social and economic theories have identified a number of factors that can incrementally affect the likelihood of tipping, determining precisely when social tipping will occur spontaneously is difficult, as the theories either predict multiple outcomes—in which both norm abandonment and norm persistence are possible—or require specific parametric assumptions ( 3 , 8 , 10 – 13 , 26 – 29 ).…”

“…Empirical analysis of tipping phenomena has traditionally relied on historical ( 25 , 29 , 30 ) or survey data ( 31 , 32 ). These studies clearly document instances of sudden social change in daily life, but the data do not permit us to identify models that can predict social tipping.…”

A theory of norm collapse

“…Using Kuran’s theoretical framework of private and public preference, Jones (2009) explained how the norm regarding women’s higher education collapsed at the end of the 1960s. She argues that a social norm can persist though it is undermined by the change in people’s private preference because single individuals alone are unwilling to diverge from the prevailing norm.…”