Gender Segregation Within Different Educational Levels: Austrian and Finnish Trends in the Light of Educational Reform, 1981–2005

Abstract

Within most educational systems, men and women tend to specialize in different fields of study. Comparing Austria and Finland, this article traces the extent and patterns of gender segregation within different educational levels between 1981 and 2005. Relying on official enrollment figures, a logarithmic index is used to measure overall and field-specific gender segregation. Although results indicate that higher educational levels are less severely differentiated into male- and female-typical fields, notable differences exist between sectors of higher education. Reforms which shifted vocational programs to a higher educational level were often accompanied by desegregation tendencies in the affected fields. Nevertheless, this increase in educational prestige seems to have made female-dominated fields only to a limited extent more attractive to male students.

Keywords:

• gender segregation
• fields of study
• educational levels
• educational reform

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Osmo Kivinen, Sakari Ahola and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

Notes

¹ The terms “female-dominated,” “male-dominated,” “feminizing,” or “masculinizing” in this article are intended solely to mark an existing or intensifying disproportionate gender representation within a given field, leaving aside the question whether such distributional changes impact on the contents and values transmitted in education (for a discussion of the latter issues see Leathwood and Read 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Irene Prix

Irene Prix, Research Unit for the Sociology of Education, University of Turku.