Gender differentiation and early labour market integration across Europe

This paper examines gender differentiation in early labour market outcomes across twelve European countries. In spite of the fact that the educational attainment of women has now surpassed that of men in many countries, differences persist in the type of educational courses taken by young women and men. Countries differ in the extent of educational segregation by gender but certain regularities are evident, with health/welfare, education and arts courses dominated by women and engineering courses dominated by men. Gender differences in field of study are found to play an important role in channelling young people towards gender-typical careers. Thus, countries with higher levels of educational segregation by gender are found to have higher levels of occupational segregation by gender. However, gender continues to have a strong direct effect on labour market outcomes in both track-differentiated and general educational systems.