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Abstract
Research shows that a lower proportion of women than men are in graduate level jobs, six months after leaving seven top UK universities. This paper presents new empirical evidence from a unique dataset on the significantly different attitudes and behaviours between Oxford men and women undergraduates that might explain why women are less likely to have secured a graduate level job than men. Lower self-assurance, firmer beliefs in gender stereotypes, strong prestige and gender-characterisation of occupations, and favouring sectors with informal and low-status entry, all contribute to a lower proportion of women securing graduate level jobs. Despite many advances in recent years narrowing the gap between men and women, there remain policy implications for curriculum delivery and co-curricular courses to increase women’s self-assurance and assertiveness, and thereby enable them to aspire to and then secure a wider range of higher prestige occupations.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the discussion or early reading of the work to Professor Mark Haggard, Liz Haggard, Professor Dame Carol Black, and Professor Nicky Ragge.
Notes
3. POLAR2 is a classification of UK postcodes in terms of the proportion of young people progressing to higher education; ACORN is a commercial classification (includes five categories from affluent achievers to urban adversity) of UK postcodes based on an array of socio-economical indicators.
4. Given the fact that students self-select to undertake internships, this finding is not considered necessarily causal in the reverse direction, that is, it would not be correct to claim on the evidence alone that undertaking an internship will enhance employment prospects.