Gender Differences In Educational Attainment Research Articles

Household Poverty and Gender Inequality in Education: A Case Study of District Layyah (Pakistan)

The study uses logistic regression on the primary data collected through the Layyah district field survey to investigate the relationship concerning gender inequality in education and poverty. This study found that gender differences in educational attainment negatively impacts household poverty. When the proportion of females enrolled in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education increases, the likelihood of household poverty declines. The likelihood of a home being poor is further refuted by the intensification in the female-to-male literacy ratio. The likelihood of poverty is positively correlated with the size of the household and the number of children under five but negatively correlated with the qualifications of the household head, age of the household, specialized or methodical abilities of the household head, and possession of the home.

Impact of Cultural Norms and Social Expectations for Shaping Gender Disparities in Educational Attainment in Pakistan

This quantitative study explores the complex phenomenon between societal expectations and cultural norms for shaping gender discrimination and further investigates the factors that affect gender differences in educational attainment in Pakistan. There are still large gender differences in the educational environment in Pakistan, and these issues have been raised with time. The goal of this research is to present a thorough investigation of the underlying causes of these differences, with an emphasis on the influence of societal standards and cultural expectations. This study is based on a quantitative approach with pertinent primary data gathering through surveys. Data on attitudes, beliefs, and practices about gender and education have been collected through a survey of a representative sample of Pakistani families and educational institutions. In addition to this quantitative data for collecting the gender gaps, qualitative interviews with important stakeholders were also conducted. This research tries to discover significant drivers of gender gaps in educational attainment by examining the links between variables such as parental expectations, cultural attitudes regarding gender roles, access to resources, and educational results. The results of the study anticipated and concluded that social norms and cultural standards affect Pakistani students' decisions and performance in school. Additionally, the study recommended insightful information to educational institutions and policymakers for the purpose of creating focused interventions that will address these discrepancies and solve the gender equality issues in education.

Examining the Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment: The Role of Exclusionary School Discipline & Criminal Justice Contact

Abstract Black men and women have different levels of average educational attainment, yet few studies have focused on explaining how and why these patterns develop. One explanation may be inequality in experiences with institutional punishment through exclusionary school discipline and criminal justice exposure. Drawing on intersectional frameworks and theories of social control, I examine the long-term association between punishment and the Black gender gap using data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY-C). Decomposition analyses reveal that about one third of the gender gap can be explained by gender differences in experiences with institutional punishments, net of differences in observed behaviors. These measures are predictive at key educational transition points, including finishing high school and earning a 4-year college degree. Though Black boys and girls have similar family backgrounds and grow up in similar neighborhoods, results suggest that Black girls have a persistent advantage in educational attainment due in part to their lower levels of exposure to exclusionary school discipline and the criminal justice system. In addition, I find that gender differences in early achievement, early externalizing behavioral problems, school experiences, and substance use in adolescence and early adulthood are associated with gender differences in educational attainment. Taken together, these results illustrate the importance of punishment disparities in understanding disparate educational outcomes over the life course of Black men and women.

Gender differences in STEM expectations across countries: how perceived labor market structures shape adolescents’ preferences

ABSTRACT Despite the reversal of gender differences in educational attainment, women continue to be underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) occupations. Yet comparative studies indicate that the male advantage in STEM fields varies across countries. To understand how these country variations come about, this study analyzes the gender gap in adolescents’ STEM expectations. While previous research mainly focused on the role of the cultural environment and the education system, this study contributes to the literature by investigating the opportunity structures of the labor market. We study how employment opportunities in science and technology, the post-industrial restructuring of labor markets in both low- and high-status occupations, and women's success in graduating from STEM fields might explain the gender gap in STEM expectations. Empirically, we analyze 15-year-old pupils’ occupational expectations from the OECD's PISA 2015 study linked with macro-level indicators in 35 EU and OECD countries by means of two-step multilevel models. Results indicate that the gender gap in STEM expectations is larger in countries with a more pronounced post-industrial restructuring of the labor market. However, rather than steering girls away from the STEM sector, post-industrial restructuring increases boys’ STEM expectations and thus seems to strengthen their gender-typical tasks preferences.

Gender inequalities in poor self-rated health: Cross-national comparison of South Korea and Japan.

Japan and South Korea represent "outliers" among rich nations with regard to having achieved high life expectancy but also ranking near the bottom on United Nations indices of gender equality. In the present study, we compared gender inequalities in self-rated health (SRH) across the life course captured in nationally representative surveys from South Korea and Japan. Our comparative analysis focused on the following questions, (1) Do Japan and South Korea exhibit similar patterns of gender inequalities in health as found in western settings (e.g. the "gender paradox" whereby women enjoy longer life expectancy, but worseself-rated health compared to men)? (2) Can gender differences in educational attainment and income account for gender differences in health in Japan & Korea? (3) Do gender inequalities in self-rated health differ over the life-course in Japan compared to South Korea? Cross-sectional data were drawn from nationally representative surveys in South Korea and Japan. We analyzed data for 239,076 participants aged 20 years or older (226,105 in South Korea and 12,971 in Japan). We evaluated the gender gap in poor SRH between two countries using logistic regression models controlling for covariates sequentially. (1) The absolute female/male gap in prevalence of poor SRH was much narrower in Japan compared to South Korea; (2) the prevalence ratios of poor SRH (women relative to men) were significantly higher in South Korea than in Japan after retirement age; (3) but the difference in the prevalence ratios of poor SRH by gender between two countries largely disappeared after adjusting for educational attainment & comorbidity. Each country needs to analyze their specific situations to understand what determines their population health status. In addition, there must exist other reasons for the"gender paradox" - i.e. why Japan & Korea have managed to achieve high longevity without gender equality.

GENDER PAY GAPS IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION: A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE

AbstractThe goal of this paper is to examine the patterns and movements of the gender pay gaps in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and to place them in the context of advanced economies. We survey over 30 publications and conduct a meta‐analysis of this literature. Gender pay gaps in the region are considerable and above the levels observed in advanced economies. Similar to advanced economies, industrial and occupational segregation widen the gaps in the FSU countries, whereas gender differences in educational attainment tend to shrink them. However, a much higher proportion of the gaps remains unexplained, pointing toward the role of unobserved gender differences related to actual and perceived productivity. Over the last 25 years, the gaps contracted in most FSU countries, primarily due to the reduction in the unexplained portion. Behind the contraction at the mean are different movements in the gap across the pay distribution. Although the glass‐ceiling effect has diminished in some FSU countries, it has persisted in others. We investigate the reasons underlying these findings and argue that the developments in the FSU region shed new light on our understanding of the gender pay gaps.

Taking Their Place: Educational Expansion and Inequality of Educational Opportunities—A Gendered Perspective

Educational expansion and gender differences in educational attainment have both been studied in various contexts, but their interdependence has rarely been examined, and even then, yielded conflicting results. We focus on the expansion of tertiary education in Israel resulting from several reforms introduced in the mid-1990s and ask two questions: (a) How did educational expansion affect inequality of opportunity (IEO)? (b) Did the effect of educational expansion differ between men and women? Based on the Israeli census, we examine changes in IEO between 1995 and 2008 across all levels of education. We find that women from lower socioeconomic background were the main beneficiaries of the expansion, especially at the MA+ level. Several explanations for these findings are discussed.

Gender Pay Gaps in the Former Soviet Union: A Review of the Evidence

The goal of this paper is to examine the patterns and movements of the gender pay gaps in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and to place them in the context of advanced economies. We survey over 30 publications and conduct a meta-analysis of this literature. Gender pay gaps in the region are considerable and above the levels observed in advanced economies. Similar to advanced economies, industrial and occupational segregation widens the gaps in the FSU countries, whereas gender differences in educational attainment tend to shrink them. However, a much higher proportion of the gaps remain unexplained, pointing toward the role of unobserved gender differences related to actual and perceived productivity. Over the last 25 years, the gaps contracted in most FSU countries, primarily due to the reduction in the unexplained portion. Underlying the contraction at the mean are different movements in the gap across the pay distribution. Although the glass-ceiling effect has diminished in some FSU countries, it has persisted in others. We investigate the reasons underlying these findings and argue that the developments in the FSU region shed new light on our understanding of the gender pay gaps.

Between Two Worlds: Source‐Country Gender Roles and Gender Differences in Educational Attainment among Immigrant Children

Recent scholarship has focused on the relationship between source‐country characteristics such as female labor force participation, fertility, level of economic development, gender role attitudes, and immigrants’ labor market assimilation. These studies refer to national‐level factors when accounting for the vast differences in home‐country groups in labor market outcomes. This study asks to what extent these source‐country characteristics affect immigrant children's educational outcomes. Using data from the 2006 Canadian Census and World Values Survey, this article examines the extent to which the gender gap in educational attainment among immigrant children is associated with source‐country factors. Female child immigrants who come from countries with high female labor force participation and high levels of GDP have an advantage over their male counterparts in university education. Source‐country gender role ideology played a role in university completion rates for immigrant parents, but not for child immigrants.

Mind The Gap! The Influence of Family Systems on The Gender Education Gap in Developing Countries, 1950–2005

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that, by shaping everyday attitudes towards women and perceptions of their value and decisions about them, family systems explain part of the difficulty in bridging the gap between men's and women's achievement in education. The gap is more pronounced outside the highly industrialized nations, where affordable mass education is not the standard, and gender differences in educational attainment are markedly affected by persisting cultural norms. I test this hypothesis by examining family systems that have had a lasting effect on gender norms. I find evidence that family systems explain gender differences in average years of education in 86 developing and middle-income countries around the globe, for the period 1950 to 2005.

Reversal of gender differences in educational attainment: an historical analysis of the West German case

Background information: During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, West Germany witnessed a reversal of gender differences in educational attainment, as females began to outperform males.Purpose: The main objective was to analyse which processes were behind the reversal of gender differences in educational attainment after 1945. The theoretical reflections and empirical evidence presented for the US context by DiPrete and Buchmann (Gender-specific trends in the value of education and the emerging gender gap in college completion, Demography 43: 1–24, 2006) and Buchmann, DiPrete, and McDaniel (Gender inequalities in education, Annual Review of Sociology 34: 319–37, 2008) are considered and applied to the West German context. It is suggested that the reversal of gender differences is a consequence of the change in female educational decisions, which are mainly related to labour market opportunities and not, as sometimes assumed, a consequence of a ‘boy’s crisis’.Sample: Several databases, such as the German General Social Survey, the German Socio-economic Panel and the German Life History Study, are employed for the longitudinal analysis of the educational and occupational careers of birth cohorts born in the twentieth century.Design and methods: Changing patterns of eligibility for university studies are analysed for successive birth cohorts and gender. Binary logistic regressions are employed for the statistical modelling of the individuals’ achievement, educational decision and likelihood for social mobility – reporting average marginal effects (AME).Results: The empirical results suggest that women’s better school achievement being constant across cohorts does not contribute to the explanation of the reversal of gender differences in higher education attainment, but the increase of benefits for higher education explains the changing educational decisions of women regarding their transition to higher education.Conclusions: The outperformance of females compared with males in higher education might have been initialised by several social changes, including the expansion of public employment, the growing demand for highly qualified female workers in welfare and service areas, the increasing returns of women’s increased education and training, and the improved opportunities for combining family and work outside the home. The historical data show that, in terms of (married) women’s increased labour market opportunities and female life-cycle labour force participation, the raising rates of women’s enrolment in higher education were – among other reasons – partly explained by their rising access to service class positions across birth cohorts, and the rise of their educational returns in terms of wages and long-term employment.

Gender differences in educational attainment at the primary and secondary education levels in Turkey

Due to its importance for economic and social development, studies on the education of children, particularly decisions about the education of girls, have been growing in the literature. This study investigates the determinants of the educational attainment of girls and boys at the primary and secondary education levels in Turkey using the 2003 Household Budget Survey. This study differs from most of the other studies by considering both the censoring problem and unobserved common family characteristics in the analysis. The educational attainment and the potential factors that are associated with gender gap in schooling are found to differ by the level of education. In particular, parental education and community characteristics are the main factors for the schooling of girls, particularly at the secondary school level, whilst having a self-employed father or having a father working in agriculture are among the key determinants of the primary school educational attainment of boys.

The Gender‐Gap Reversal in Education and Its Effect on Union Formation: The End of Hypergamy?

Newly released census microdata reveal the nearly worldwide and substantial decline in educational hypergamy (women marrying men with higher educational attainment) across 56 countries from the 1970s to the 2000s. We examine the extent to which the observed decrease in hypergamy is connected to the worldwide rise in female educational attainment. Our results show that educational hypergamy is an enduring form of gender inequality in union formation across the countries examined but that it has been decreasing over the last few decades and in some countries has reversed in recent years. Overall, we find a strong association between hypergamy and gender differences in educational attainment. Societies in which the female educational advantage is greater tend to have lower levels of educational hypergamy. There is a tendency toward a joint increase in women's educational levels and a decrease in educational hypergamy. This article underlines the influence of women's educational opportunities on the increase in gender symmetry in assortative mating, which leads us to predict the end of educational hypergamy.

Gender differences in educational attainment: Influences of the family environment

There are gender differences in educational attainment amongst British children and there is evidence that these differences emerge early in life. In this study we investigate whether boys’ and girls’ early educational attainment levels are similarly related to disadvantage in the family environment. This study uses survey data from the Millennium Cohort Study linked with the teachers Foundation Stage Profile assessment for children in the primary year of school in England between 2005 and 2006. The study finds lower attainment in communication, language and literacy and mathematical development for both boys and girls in families experiencing socio‐economic disadvantage. Early motherhood, low maternal qualifications, low family income and unemployment most strongly predict lower scores. Tests for gender interaction shows boys in families where mothers are young, where they lack qualifications or if they are living in poor quality areas are more disadvantaged compared to girls in similar circumstances.

Gender Differences in Educational Attainment among the Children of Canadian Immigrants

This article examines the gender differences in university education attainment among the children of Canadian immigrants, observing the extent to which parental human capital and social capital in the family and immigrant community may be more important and/or different for men and women. This allows us to examine the degree to which structural and cultural factors used to explain racial differences in academic achievement are also viable explanations along gender lines. Distinct patterns of upward mobility or possibilities for blocked mobility are segmented not only by race and ethnicity but also along gender lines. This study finds the importance of parental human capital whereby maternal education matters more for girls while father's education was more prominent for son's education. Family structure and feelings of exclusion during childhood have a more important role for women while identification with an ethnic ancestry for men is crucial for their pursuit of higher education.

Learning about Academic Ability and the College Dropout Decision

Research examining the educational attainment of low-income students has often focused on financial factors such as credit constraints. We use unique longitudinal data to provide direct evidence about a prominent alternative explanation—that departures from school arise as students learn about their academic ability or grade performance. Examining college dropout, we find that this explanation plays a very prominent role; our simulations indicate that dropout between the first and second years would be reduced by 40% if no learning occurred about grade performance/academic ability. The article also contributes directly to the understanding of gender differences in educational attainment.

Gender Differences in Educational Attainment: Evidence on the Role of Tracking from a Finnish Quasi‐experiment

AbstractIn this paper we study the relationship between the timing of tracking of pupils into vocational and academic secondary education and gender differences in educational attainment and income. It is argued that in a comprehensive system, where students are tracked into vocational and academic schools relatively late (age 15–16), girls are more likely to choose the academic track than boys. We exploit the Finnish comprehensive school reform of the 1970s to analyse this hypothesis. This changed the Finnish school system from a selective to a comprehensive structure and postponed tracking from the age of 10–11 to 15–16. Since the reform was not implemented at the same time throughout the country, we can observe members of the same cohorts under both systems. The shift to a comprehensive system was found to increase gender differences in the probability of choosing an academic secondary education and of continuing onto academic tertiary education. Moreover, the reform decreased the gender wage gap in adult income by four percentage points.

Gender and Leadership in Healthcare Administration: 21st Century Progress and Challenges

The need for strong leadership and increased diversity is a prominent issue in today's health services workforce. This article reviews the latest literature, including research and proposed agendas, regarding women in executive healthcare leadership. Data suggest that the number of women in leadership roles is increasing, but women remain underrepresented in the top echelons of healthcare leadership, and gender differences exist in the types of leadership roles women do attain. Salary disparity prevails, even when controlling for gender differences in educational attainment, age, and experience. Despite widespread awareness of these problems in the field, current action and policy recommendations are severely lacking. Along with the challenges of cost, quality, and an aging population, the time has come for a more thoughtful, policy-focused approach to amend the discrepancy between gender and leadership in healthcare administration.

‘It's Pretty Cool To Be Clever’: The Marginal Relevance of Gender to Educational Practices and Attainment at A/AS Level?

Gender differences in educational attainment have generated considerable debate. Unfortunately, this debate has been constructed in terms of either the measurement of change in the size of the gender gap over time or attempts to theorise such change. This scholarly divide reflects the commitment of researchers to particular methodological paradigms. Therefore, this paper draws on part of a longitudinal, mixedmethods study conducted in three Sixth Forms in England to examine both the extent and causes of gender differences in attainment. Initially, a questionnaire was completed by 330 students in the Sixth Forms and, subsequently, in-depth interviews, nonparticipant observation and a vignette were used to explore students' educational experiences. The public examination grades students held on entering and leaving the Sixth Form were analysed to establish gender differences in attainment. At the start of students' studies, the size of the gender gap in attainment was found to be relatively modest and this ...

KEEPING A SENSE OF PROPORTION BUT LOSING ALL PERSPECTIVE: A CRITIQUE OF GORARD'S NOTION OF THE ‘POLITICIAN'S ERROR’

ABSTRACT: in 1999 Stephen Gorard published an article in this journal in which he provided a trenchant critique of what he termed the ‘politician's error’ in analysing differences in educational attainment. The main consequence of this error, he argued, has been the production of misleading findings in relation to trends in educational performance over time that have, in turn, led to misguided and potentially damaging policy interventions. By using gender differences in educational attainment as a case study, this article begins by showing how Gorard's notion of the politician's error has been largely embraced and adopted uncritically by those within the field. However, the article goes on to demonstrate how Gorard's own preferred way of analysing such differences – by calculating and comparing proportionate changes in performance between groups – is also inherently problematic and can lead to the production of equally misleading findings. The article will argue that there is a need to develop a more reliable and valid way of measuring trends in educational performance over time and will show that one of the simplest ways of doing this is to make use of existing, and widely accepted, measures of effect size.