Where Do Postgraduate Studies Lead Women and Men?

Abstract

International analyses show that the gender segregation within the education system does not decrease with increasing enrolment rates. Instead, opposite tendencies have been observed. Reforms directed towards educational groups in general have proved to favour men more than women. Swedish statistics show that both the education system and the labour market are highly gender segregated. In spite of massive reform work aiming at promoting equality, the education system is clearly gender segregated. It is a long way to the goal of the 1987 equality plan, ie that the proportion of women and men shall be 40-60 percent in all study programmes in upper secondary schools and in higher education. The labour market exhibits a pattern with a women's sphere and a men's sphere. The women's sphere has, on average, lower wages and lower status than that of the men. SCB's (the Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics) statistics also point to differences between the genders regarging their use of time, distribution of household work, distribution of power and economic resources.