Gender-based inequalities in education and labour markets are strongly interlinked. Differences in education enrolment rates, completion rates, academic achievements and, especially, field of study influence the types of jobs and careers that individuals pursue. For instance, the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, which often offers higher-paying and more stable employment opportunities, translates into different skills and tasks specialization, ultimately leading to occupational segregation.
Not only are women and men concentrated in different sectors and occupations (horizontal segregation), but their distribution across grades, levels of responsibility or positions also differ (vertical segregation), thus making gender pay gaps a structural feature of our society. Taking a comprehensive picture of the phenomena requires looking at various lifecycle stages, from education to transitions to the labour market, and subsequent career developments.
Gender gaps in education
Gender gaps in education still persist despite recent progress. Girls usually outperform boys in language and humanities, while boys generally excel in math and sciences, but there are substantial cross-country differences in gender gaps linked to socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. Gender differences in educational performance can be influenced by biases in teacher expectations, societal influences, and shocks such as health disasters, social unrest, and war.
A study for Russia, Slovenia, Uzbekistan, and the United Arab Emirates shows that the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have more negatively affected grade-8 girls than boys regarding their improved self-perceived learning and self-reported grades. Reduced physical activity and psychological distress of students, as well as the perceived family climate, are amongst the main causes behind these results.
Focussing on Europe, data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 2018 examined the academic performance of male and female students in relation to family characteristics, attitudes towards education, and class or school environment. The findings reveal a persisting gender gap favouring 15-year-old boys in most European countries, mainly linked to students’ socioeconomic background. On the contrary, women are more likely to participate in study abroad programmes than men based on data for France, Germany and Italy.
In a globalized world, it is crucial to reduce performance disparities to promote equal opportunity in education. Schools and teachers play a significant role in fostering student learning by encouraging reading activities and promoting cooperation. Additionally, schools should prioritize equipping students with the necessary tools for cultural emancipation, regardless of their family's socioeconomic background.
Gender and the labour market
The integration of women into the workforce has been a significant factor in transforming the European economic landscape. Although female participation rates have increased since the second half of the 20th century, when the traditional ‘male breadwinner’ model started losing weight in favour of the ‘dual earner-carer’ model, their incorporation in the labour market has not been simple.
The European Jobs Monitor 2021, a joint report by Eurofound and the JRC, presents evidence that women in Europe continue to be less engaged in the labour market than men, earn lower wages, face occupational segregation, and bear a greater share of the care responsibilities for dependent household members. A recent study on demographic and occupational change also shows that despite an overall upgrading of the European labour market structures, gender gaps prevail when looking at the internal composition of the occupational structure. While there has been an increase in the number of working women and they have benefitted more from occupational upgrading than men in absolute terms, women are still more likely to hold low-paid jobs than men.
Along these lines, another JRC study on gender gaps at the workplace in France reveals significant gender differences in the types of tasks performed at the workplace. While women tend to undertake fewer physical tasks than men – despite significant increase in such activities in female dominated jobs – women appear to be less involved in intellectual tasks and, especially, social tasks such as managing and coordinating. An extended version of the study focuses on gender gaps in power and control within the same job in the French labour market and finds that women tend to be in a more subordinated position compared with men. Similarly, workers in outsourced jobs suffer a wage penalty in France, but the penalty is higher for females.
To effectively address gender disparities in the labour market and promote gender equality, it is crucial for European policymakers to take into account gender differences that exist in earlier stages, such as the education system.
Publications
Bertoletti, A., Biagi, F., Di Pietro, G. and Karpinski, Z. (2023), The effect of the COVID-19 disruption on the gender gap in students’ performance: a cross-country analysis, Large-scale assessments in education, ISSN 2196-0739, 11, p. 6, JRC130766.
Bertoletti, A., Cannistrà, M., Diaz Lema, M., Masci, C., Mergoni, A., Rossi, L. and Soncin, M. (2023), The determinants of mathematics achievement: A gender perspective using multilevel random forest, Economies, ISSN 2227-7099, 11 (2), p. 32, JRC132496.
Karpiński, Z., Di Pietro, G., Biagi, F. (2023), Non-cognitive skills and social gaps in digital skills: Evidence from ICILS 2018, Learning and Individual Differences, 102 (February 2023), 102254.
Mariscal-De-Gante, Á., Palencia Esteban, A., Grubanov-Boskovic, S. and Fernandez Macias, E. (2023), Feminization, ageing and occupational change in Europe in the last 25 years, JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, education and Technology 2023/04, European Commission, JRC132328.
Seiz, M., Eremenko, T., Salazar, L. (2023), Socioeconomic differences in access to and use of Medically Assisted Reproduction (MAR) in a context of increasing childlessness, JRC Working Papers Series on Social Classes in the Digital Age 2023/03, European Commission, Seville, JRC132097.
Fana, M., Giangregorio, L., Villani, D. (2022), The outsourcing wage penalty along the wage distribution by gender, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2022/04, European Commission, Seville, JRC130452.
Fana, M., Villani, D., and Bisello, M. (2022), Gender gaps in power and control within jobs, Socio-Economic Review, mwac0062, 00 (0), p. 1-21.
Cabus, S., Napierala, J., Carretero, S. (2021), The Returns to Non-Cognitive Skills: A Meta-Analysis, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2021/06, European Commission, Seville, JRC123308
Di Pietro, G. (2022), Changes in the study abroad gender gap: A European cross-country analysis, Higher Education Quarterly, 76(2), p.436-459.
Domini, G., M. Grazzi, D. Moschella, and Treibich, T. (2021), For whom the bell tolls: the firm level effects of automation on wage and gender inequality, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2021/15, European Commission, Seville, JRC126366.
Eurofound and European Commission Joint Research Centre (2021), European Jobs Monitor 2021: Gender gaps and the employment structure, European Jobs Monitor series, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
Fana, M., Villani, D., Bisello, M. (2021), Mind the task: evidence on persistent gender gaps at the workplace, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2021/03, European Commission, Seville, JRC124065.