Mapping gender and social background differences in education and youth transitions across Europe

Abstract

This paper uses data drawn from the European Union Labour Force Survey 2000 Ad Hoc Module on School to Work Transitions to explore the influence of gender and social background (measured in terms of parental education) on young people's educational and early labour market outcomes across 12 European countries. Our results show that social background is strongly related to the level of education achieved while gender is found to have a stronger effect on the field of study selected. Countries vary in the extent to which gender and social background affect young people's outcomes. Gender differentiation in labour market outcomes reflects the nature of the welfare regime, being more pronounced in familial and conservative systems. Social inequality in educational attainment and early labour market outcomes are less marked in Finland and Sweden, reflecting the combination of less differentiated educational systems, mass higher education and social–democratic welfare regimes. In contrast, social inequality is more marked in the Eastern European countries, due partly to their highly differentiated educational systems but more notably to rapid changes taking place in post-communist systems.

Keywords:

• transition
• social class
• gender
• education
• field of study

Notes

1. Finland and Sweden (as well as Luxembourg, The Netherlands and the UK, which are not included in this paper) chose a shorter time period, five years, as the time span between leaving education and the time of the survey.

2. In some countries a more detailed information of field of study was collected. However, for reasons of data comparability across countries and limitation in the number of cases that could be studied using a more refined distinction of fields of study, we carried out our analyses using the broad nine-category international classification of field of study.

3. In the Italian context, the information on field of study of the highest level of education completed is usually more relevant than the information on the field of education related to the level when young people left continuous education. It is the field of the qualification achieved that is mainly considered by the future employer. This is because in most universities in Italy a student may choose how many examinations to take each year and he/she may be enrolled in the university for several years while passing only a few examinations. Thus it is the subject studied of the course completed that is most relevant for knowing the skills or knowledge a young person has acquired through education or training.

4. ‘Fields of education were classified in terms of their “female-intensity”; the original intention was to divide fields into “female-intensive” (>60% female), “mixed” (40–60% female) and “male-intensive” (<40% female) subject areas. However, as countries differ in their female representation at the different educational levels, the cut-offs were adjusted accordingly’ (Smyth 2005, pp. 458–459).

5. This is calculated by summing the absolute differences in the proportion of males and females (or in the proportion of young people from different social classes) in each educational field and dividing the total by two.