Gender Differentiation and Early Labour Market Integration across Europe

This chapter examines gender differentiation in early labour market outcomes across 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. Countries with higher levels of educational segregation by gender are found to have higher levels of occupational segregation by gender. However, marked gender differences are still apparent between women and men who have received the same kind of education, regardless of the country considered.