While Girls Incorporated and other organizations have evolved with the changing times, many of the old problems remain.Women - Education

Marcia Brumit Kropf

English

Research Papers in Economics

12 REGIONAL REVIEW Q1 2005
irls incorporated, a nonproﬁt organiza-
tion that serves girls aged 6 to 18, has been dra-
matically inﬂuenced by the transformation that 
Claudia Goldin describes. The group began in 
1864 in Waterbury, Connecticut, as a place for 
girls to gather while their mothers worked in the 
factories. An early statement of purpose (1937) was explicit 
about its mission of preparing young women to be wives and 
mothers. “Little girls of today are the homemakers of the future,  G
1
WOMEN’S EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND EARLY CHOICES
inspiring 
girls  
to be strong, 
by marcia brumit kropf 
lower the voting age. (“Old enough to die, old enough to 
vote,” was the slogan at the time.)
 Using these variations in state law and judicial rulings, 
Lawrence F. Katz and I were able to look at their impact 
on the age at ﬁrst marriage and on women’s careers. We 
ﬁnd that laws allowing for greater access were strongly and 
positively related to the age at ﬁrst marriage and strongly 
and positively related to the fraction of women pursuing 
professional careers. The availability of the Pill to young, 
single women does appear to have been a substantial factor 
in the quiet revolution.
While the Pill was an important factor, it was only 
one contributing factor; and it functioned within a larger 
changing social and economic environment for young 
women. Labor force participation rates had already been 
rising for some time, although until the late 1960s young 
women had not built the increases into their educational 
investment calculus. The appearance of the Pill may have 
enabled young women to view early investments in time-
intensive careers as less risky. The resurgence of feminism 
may have awakened young women to the social changes 
around them and also contributed to their use of the Pill. 
Antidiscrimination laws affecting hiring, promotion, and 
education may also have contributed, on the margin, to 
protect women workers and to encourage schools to admit 
them.
Other factors appear to have been less important. Abor-
tion reform may have mattered somewhat; but in our statis-
tical analysis, abortion reform runs a distant second to the 
Pill in explaining the changes discussed above. Similarly, 
because women tend to marry men who are somewhat 
older than they are, the Baby Boom created a sex ratio 
bulge. But this does not explain much of the increase in 
the age at ﬁrst marriage for the group of women analyzed 
here, nor can it explain the enormous increase in profes-
sional degrees for women.
Whatever the precise reasons, a great divide in college- 
graduate women’s lives and employment occurred about 
35 years ago. Before this change, women who reached 
the peaks made solo climbs. They became symbols and 
tokens demonstrating that women could achieve greatness. 
But real change demanded a march by the masses from 
the valley to the summit. That march began with women 
born in the late 1940s. S
Claudia Goldin is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics 
at Harvard University and Director of the Development 
of the American Economy Program, National Bureau of 
Economic Research.Q1 2005 REGIONAL REVIEW 13 
the mothers of the next generation of citizens. Opportunities 
given to them now for cultural background, for healthy minds 
and bodies, for training in homecraft and a basic knowledge 
of motherhood—these determine the standards of our future 
homes.” As late as the 1950s, the Girls Incorporated mission 
remained essentially unchanged. In 1952, it inaugurated a 
Homemaker of the Year Award. In 1955, with funding from a 
shampoo manufacturer, it published The Handbook of Charm. 
The book covered topics such as hair, skin, posture, and ward-
robe, and offered pointers on manners including, 
“Don’t monopolize a conversation. Don’t inter-
rupt when others talk. When at any public gath-
ering, conduct yourself in a ladylike, considerate 
manner . . . don’t be conspicuous and call a lot of 
unnecessary attention to yourself.” 
During the 1960s and 1970s, Girls Incorpo-
rated completely rethought its mission and pur-
pose. With changing times came a new focus on 
preparing girls for interesting work and economic 
independence. In 1984, its ﬁrst identity program, 
focused on adolescent pregnancy prevention, was 
introduced. In 1998, the current mission state-
ment was adopted: to inspire all girls to be strong, 
smart, and bold. Today seven additional identity 
programs are offered, including math and science 
education, media literacy, violence prevention, 
economic literacy, leadership development, sub-
stance abuse prevention, and sports participation, 
all designed to help girls think about themselves 
in new ways. 
But while Girls Incorporated and other orga-
nizations have evolved with the changing times, 
many of the old problems remain, leaving Goldin’s 
revolution unﬁnished. A recent Girls Inc./Har-
ris Interactive survey of 2,000 girls and boys in 
People
think
girls
don’t
know
how to
take care
of their
own
money
The
smartest
girls in
school
are not
popular
People
don’t
think
girls are
good
leaders
Girls are
expected
to speak
softly
and not
cause
trouble
Girls are
told not
to brag
about
things
they do
well
Girls are
under a
lot of
pressure
to please
everyone
Girls are
under a
lot of
pressure
to dress
the
right
way
39% 44% 47%
56% 59%
75%
63% smart, & bold
grades 3 through 12 found that three-quarters of the girls agreed 
that girls are under pressure to dress the right way; 63 percent 
agreed that girls are under pressure to please everyone; and 59 
percent agreed that girls are told not to brag about things they 
do well. This raises troubling questions about the inﬂuences 
that girls face when they’re preparing for their futures. Boys 
recognized the stereotypes, too, but girls were twice as likely to 
be highly dissatisﬁed with them: 47 percent of girls compared to 
23 percent of boys as measured by an index Harris created.
I’ll end with another thought-provoking Girls Inc./Harris 
study on the potential inﬂuence of “girls’ communities.” The 
study deﬁned participation in a girls’ community very loosely, 
including playing on a girls’ sports team or being in a Girl Scout 
troop; it didn’t have to be as intensive as attending a girls’ school. 
Nonetheless, girls who participated in such groups were more 
likely to plan to attend college, more likely to feel safe, more 
likely to play sports, and more likely to read books than girls who 
did not. The study can’t explain exactly why these differences 
occurred, and it cannot sort out the extent to which girls who 
join girls’ communities are different—perhaps more motivat-
ed—to begin with. But it does raise interesting questions about 
what will most help girls make progress and to ﬁnd a comfortable 
place in the economy and the world in the future. S
Marcia Brumit Kropf is Chief Operating Ofﬁcer of Girls  
Incorporated.
Stereotypes 
experienced 
by  
girls
Source: Taking the Lead, Girls’ Rights in the 21st Century (2000), a Harris Interactive Poll that surveyed 
2,000 girls and boys in grades 3 through 12, commissioned by Girls Incorporated

Inspiring girls to be strong, smart, and bold: girls’ organizations change with the times

http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/nerr/rr2005/q1/section1b.pdf

Inspiring girls to be strong, smart, and bold: girls’ organizations change with the times

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