{"id":8935,"date":"2020-05-18T08:30:08","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T06:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cogito\/home\/les-inegalites-de-sexes-dans-leducation-superieure\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T15:05:05","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T13:05:05","slug":"gender-inequalities-in-higher-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cogito\/home\/gender-inequalities-in-higher-education\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Gender Inequalities in Higher Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ghazala Azmat, Department of Economics*<\/em><\/p>\n

In most OECD countries, women have surpassed men in college completion. On average, more than 50 percent of young women have a college degree, compared with 38 percent of young men.<\/p>\n

Proportion of women and men made college graduated in, 2018 in OECD countries<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Source<\/a>

Source : OECD (2020), Population with tertiary education (indicator)<\/p><\/div>\n

The rise in female educational attainment is not a recent phenomenon but one that has been noted over several decades. The removal of barriers for women into education and the labour market being important drivers of this increased investments in human capital. However, the changing patterns in higher education attainment have raised a number of new questions, baffling many social scientists.<\/p>\n

The different values of a degree<\/h4>\n
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Women’s leadership around the world, January 2020<\/p><\/div>\n

Women\u2019s under-representation at the top remains a mystery, especially given the numbers coming through. In the United States, for example, nearly a third of people who get an MBA are women; and the share of female law school graduates and female PhD holders is now almost 50%. Yet, even among high-skilled professionals, there remain big differences between men and women in their representation, earnings and career progression.<\/p>\n

Among S&P 500 companies, women account for only 5% of CEOs and 26% of managers. In other professions, law and academia, underrepresentation is also common \u2013 for instance, women account for 20% of law firm partners and 32% of professors. Irrespective of position on the ladder, wage gaps between men and women for these highly skilled professional still persist.<\/p>\n

Where do gender inequalities among the college graduates stem from? An important first step is to look at differences in whether there are important differences in terms of what is studied at college and how this plays a role in later wage inequalities. The graph below plots, for France, the relationship between the average pay in each of the major fields of study and the proportion of women in those fields. With the exception of pharmacy, there is a clear negative relationship between average field wages and the proportion of women in those fields. Women are overrepresented in lower-paying fields, such as, arts, history, languages, psychology. Men, on the other hand, are overrepresented in highly paid disciplines, such as mathematics, computer science, and engineering.<\/p>\n

Median (net) monthly salary en euros in France, 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Figure

Source: Insertion professionnelle des dipl\u00f4m\u00e9s de Master en universit\u00e9s et \u00e9tablissements assimil\u00e9s – donn\u00e9es nationales par disciplines, Anne Boring (Le Monde, 2017) & Minist\u00e8re de l’Enseignement sup\u00e9rieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation<\/p><\/div>\n

A persistent wage disparities<\/h4>\n

However, inequalities generated by field choice can only be part of the story. When looking at earning differences among men and women studying in the same field, we see that with no exception, women are paid less (Figure 3). Moreover, these gaps grow over time. Even in the relatively short term, comparing gaps in pay 18 months to 30 months after graduation, we see that, again, without exception across fields, the wage gap expands.<\/p>\n

The evolution of the wage gap between women and men 3 months and 18 months after graduation in France, 2016<\/b><\/p>\n

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Source: Insertion professionnelle des dipl\u00f4m\u00e9s de Master en universit\u00e9s et \u00e9tablissements assimil\u00e9s – donn\u00e9es nationales par disciplines, Anne Boring (Le Monde, 2017) & Minist\u00e8re de l’Enseignement sup\u00e9rieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation<\/p><\/div>\n

Wage disparities among similarly skilled college-graduated men and women is not the only puzzle surrounding the gender gaps in educational attainment. There is a growing interest to understand if men and women have different experiences in college. Taking a step back even further back, researchers are also asking why do school aged boys and girls make different decisions about going to college, and why do they make different choices about what to do if they decide to go.<\/p>\n

Relative skill and behaviour differences<\/h4>\n
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Sciences Po Libraty 2019\u00a9 Caroline Maufroid \/ Sciences Po<\/p><\/div>\n

There has been a recent interest in the role played by non-cognitive skills in explaining labour market and educational success. Differences by gender in behavioural and socio- emotional skills have been studied as a potential source to explain why less boys than girls go to college. The emphasis on good grades and academic performance, as well as conduct in the classroom, such as attendance, disciplinary incidents (arguing, fighting, disturbances), and social behaviour, often favour female students and have been shown to have a substantial impact on the probability of enrolling in college, even after taking into account cognitive ability and high school achievement(1)<\/sup><\/a>Jacob, B. “Where the Boys Aren\u2019t: Non-Cognitive Skills, Returns to School and the Gender Gap in Higher Education<\/a>” Economics of Education Review<\/em>, 2002 ; Becker, Gary S., William H. J. Hubbard, and Kevin M. Murphy.\u00a0<\/cite>“The Market for College Graduates and the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of<\/a> Women<\/a>“<\/span> American Economic Review<\/span>,<\/cite> 2010<\/span><\/span>