Gender and recent graduates’ occupational stratification: the interactive role of the educational and employment sectors in four countries

Abstract

This paper explores whether polytechnic and university graduates are affected in the same way by gender differences in the graduate labour market in four countries: the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Switzerland. Using data from the Research into Employment and Professional Flexibility (REFLEX) graduate survey, the analysis is based on multinomial logistic regression models with particular attention paid to the interpretation of relevant two‐way interaction terms. The results show that in three of the four countries, the impact of gender as well as gender‐typed fields of study on graduates’ chances of accessing the highest and lowest occupational ranks varies between university graduates and polytechnic graduates. Female‐specific benefits of public sector employment for graduates’ occupational positioning were confirmed in only one country, but the results also suggest that this association depends on the type of higher education gained. As a consequence, the analysis challenges the idea of higher education as a uniform asset in the graduate labour market.