Running Ahead or Running in Place? Educational Expansion and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market

Abstract

This study focuses on gender inequality in access to professional and managerial jobs and in pay among highly educated workers in Israel. Like many other Western countries, Israel has experienced a dramatic rise in higher education since the early 1990s, and more so for women than for men. In light of this change, the study asks whether women’s opportunities in the labor market have improved or rather deteriorated in access to professional and managerial jobs and in pay. The findings show that, in general, women with academic education improved their market position vis-a-vis men. They have entered formerly male-dominated jobs and managed to reduce some of the gaps in access to the better-paying professions. There is also a general decline in the gender pay gap. However, women still lag behind men, especially in the highly-paid “classic” professions. Inequality is lowest in non-professional jobs, where more women than men are employed and for which the workers are overeducated.