Gender and Ethnic Inequalities across the Educational Career

Abstract

This chapter examines whether the second generation has assimilated to Western patterns of female advantage in education. In contrast to most industrialised societies, which have witnessed a change towards female advantage in education in recent decades, gender gaps in education in ethnic minorities’ origin countries vary greatly, with persistent female disadvantage in world regions where many of the minorities under study originate. Interactions between female gender and ethnic background are examined for the five educational outcomes analysed in the previous chapters, thus covering the entire educational career. The results show that gender gaps among the second generation are on the whole as large and in the same direction as among the majority population. Thus the female disadvantage found in the parental generation disappears in the children's generation and is replaced by the same pattern of female advantage that is found among majority groups in Western countries.