Women’s outcomes in education and employment: strong gains, but more to do

by Éric Charbonnier and Corinne Heckmann
Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

There’s no denying it: when it comes to education and employment, women are on a roll, all over the world.  As described in the latest issue of the OECD’s new brief series Education Indicators in Focus, the achievement gap between boys and girls has narrowed so much at lower levels of education that the focus of concern is now on the underachievement of boys.  On the 2009 PISA reading assessment, for example, 15-year-old girls outperformed boys in every OECD country, on average by 39 points – the equivalent of one year of school.

Young women are also making strong progress in higher education in OECD countries.  In 2000, 51% percent of women could be expected to enter a university-level programme at some point in their lives; today, the number is 66%.  In fact, the proportion of women who hold a university-level qualification now equals or exceeds that of men in 29 of the 32 OECD countries for which data are comparable. This figure is below 50% only in China, Japan, Korea and Turkey.

At the same time, still more can be done to improve outcomes for girls and young women in the classroom.  In mathematics, for example, 15-year-old boys tend to perform slightly better than girls in most countries, while science performance is more variable.  And in higher education, women remain under-represented at the most advanced levels.  Across all OECD countries, less than half of advanced research qualifications such as doctorates were awarded to women in 2009.  In Japan and Korea, the figure is only around 30%.  This pattern holds in all countries except Brazil, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal and the United States.

In addition, some fields of study are still branded as “masculine” or “feminine”. In 2009, more than 70% of higher education students in the field of education were women, and an average of 75% of the degrees in the fields of health and welfare also went to women. By contrast, in most countries, fewer than 30% of all graduates in the fields of engineering, manufacturing and construction were women.

Nonetheless, women’s strides in education have led to improved labour market outcomes for women overall. For instance, the gender gap in employment narrowed from 25 percentage points in 2000 to 21 percentage points in 2009 among those without an upper secondary qualification, and from 19 percentage points in 2000 to 15 percentage points in 2009 among those with an upper secondary qualification. And it’s narrower still among those with a higher education qualification, shrinking from 11 percentage points in 2000 to 9 percentage points in 2009.

Increasingly, OECD countries are doing more to address gender gaps – both in education and employment.  For example, in the Czech Republic, Germany and the Slovak Republic, the proportion of women graduating with science degrees grew by more than 10 percentage points between 2000 and 2009.  As a result, these countries are now closer to the OECD average of 40% -- a figure that has remained stable over the past decade. In 2000, the European Union announced a goal to increase the number of university graduates in mathematics, science and technology by at least 15% by 2010, and to reduce the gender imbalance in these subjects. So far, however, progress toward this goal has been marginal.

On the employment side, the Nordic countries, Germany and Portugal have instituted policies allowing fathers to receive parental leave and income support so their spouses can remain in the workforce.  In Iceland, Norway and Spain, some firms are required to have at least 40% of their boardroom seats assigned to women. Meanwhile, other companies, such as Deutsche Telekom, have introduced voluntary quotas for women in management and family-friendly practices such as flex-times and tele-working.

The bottom line is clear: while girls and women have made strong gains, it’s time to finish the job.  To promote gender equality even further, policymakers should be encouraged to pursue policies to increase mathematics and science performance among girls – as well as reading achievement among boys.  Meanwhile, initiatives to break down gender stereotypes in fields of study and progressive corporate policies can do more to increase women’s employment opportunities.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus
OECD Gender Initiative
www.oecd.org/gender/equality
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators
www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure
Chart source: OECD Education Database

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Tackling inequity

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education

What struck me most about the international roundtable on early childhood education and care that I attended late last month in Oslo was the simple fact that this topic attracted such intense interest. It probably wouldn’t have happened a decade ago. The fact that it’s happening now, even as most of the countries represented at the meeting are in the midst of an economic crisis, is an encouraging sign. It shows that more governments understand that equity of opportunity has to begin in the first years of life, in the earliest years of a child’s education, in order to give everyone a fair chance to succeed later on.

As recent headlines repeatedly tell us, and as is evident just looking around us, equity has become something of an endangered ideal. And this is, unfortunately, just as true in education as in many other areas of life. OECD research finds that one in five students does not complete secondary school; yet our research also shows that those 15-year-olds, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, who had attended pre-primary education perform better on PISA than those who did not. In other words, give all children a good start and you give them the tools and the confidence to meet the challenges that arise later on in their lives.

It is easy to argue, particularly when governments are forced to make tough economic choices, that this kind of inclusiveness in education is too expensive to introduce and maintain, that the quality of the education provided would, inevitably, suffer. But some countries–Poland is one notable example–have already proven that inclusiveness and quality in education are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, I would argue that inclusiveness improves quality for all concerned, as it is to the advantage of society as a whole when people from different backgrounds learn with and from each other.

That is precisely the premise of Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools, which is published today. In essence, countries in the industrialised world cannot afford not to invest in quality early childhood, primary and secondary education for all: the cost to society later on–in high rates of unemployment, in poor health, in increasing criminal activity–would be far greater.

Many governments of OECD countries are now talking of structural reform to tackle complex problems cost-effectively; inequity–in education and in general–should be at the top of the agenda. In fact, education is no longer, if it ever was, an isolated issue. Education reform requires an all-government approach, involving policies related to such disparate domains as housing and taxation. It also requires commitment, both financial and philosophical. All governments say they want to tackle the problem of growing inequity that, left unchecked, could threaten the stability of our societies. Investing in quality education for all is one of the best ways of doing so.

Links: 
More information about OECD work on equity in education: www.oecd.org/edu/equity
Equity and Quality in Education - Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators
OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Photo credit: © Brian Kennedy/Flickr/Getty Images

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Higher education: an insurance policy against global downturns

by J.D. LaRock
Senior Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

During the first two years of the economic crisis, unemployment
was higher among adults with less education, on average across the OECD zone.

With all the economic turmoil of the past several years, have you ever wished you could buy an insurance policy to protect against the effects of a global recession?  Well, such a insurance policy already exists – and it’s called higher education.  During the first two years of the global economic crisis, in country after country, people with a tertiary (higher) education were much less likely to be unemployed, much more likely to be participating in the labour force, and more likely to have higher earnings, compared to their less-educated counterparts.

These and other findings are discussed in the first issue of the OECD’s new education brief series, Education Indicators in Focus.

As the crisis ramped up in 2008 and continued in 2009, unemployment rates increased across the board in OECD countries. However, the impact was much greater for adults without an upper secondary education. Among this group, unemployment rates rose from an already high 8.7% to 11.5%, and jumped five percentage points or more in Estonia, Ireland, Spain and the United States.  Adults with an upper secondary or equivalent level of education fared somewhat better: among this group, unemployment rates rose from 4.9% to 6.8% between 2008 and 2009 across the OECD zone.  However, in Estonia, Ireland, Spain and Turkey, jobless rates reached 10% or more for this group of people – a mark generally regarded as troublingly high territory for unemployment.

By contrast, people with a tertiary education were the best protected against unemployment during the thick of the global recession. Overall, unemployment rates in OECD countries ticked up just 1.1 percentage points for this group between 2008 and 2009, from 3.3% to 4.4%.  Moreover, 2009 unemployment rates remained at 5% or less for tertiary-educated people in 24 out of 34 OECD countries, and surpassed 8% in only two – Spain and Turkey.

Employment figures tell a similar story: during the crisis year of 2009, people with higher education not only had less trouble finding a job, but also had an easier time keeping the job they had.  Across all OECD countries, 83.6% of adults with a tertiary education were employed in 2009, compared to 74.2% of adults with an upper secondary or equivalent education, and just 56.0% of adults without an upper secondary education.  While a number of factors contribute to the level of adults’ participation in the labour force, higher employment rates for people with more education point to a better match between the skills these individuals possess and the skills the labour market demands, even during periods of economic crisis.

What’s more, the sizeable earnings premium that university-educated people typically enjoy in the labour market held strong during the crisis years of 2008 and 2009.  In 2008, among 14 OECD countries with comparable data, the typical employee with higher education earned 56% more than the typical employee with an upper secondary or equivalent education.  Even in the face of the economic crisis, this premium increased slightly to 57% in 2009. By contrast, the typical employee without an upper secondary education earned 23% less than a corresponding worker with an upper secondary education in 2008 – and this earnings penalty remained the same in 2009.

Having a higher education isn’t fail-safe protection from the consequences of a global economic downturn.  But like any good insurance policy, it can help people recover when bad things happen to them.  And with the economic outlook for 2012 looking as uncertain as it does, that’s no small comfort.

For more information
Education Indicators in Focus
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme (Brochure PDF 2.3 KB)

Chart source: Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, Indicator A7.

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Ringing in a new (school) year

Early September marks the beginning of a new school year for children in the northern hemisphere (our friends in the southern hemisphere have been back to school for months now). It also marks the beginning for OECD educationtoday's new blog home here at oecdeducationtoday.blogspot.com.

Many of you know us at www.oecd.org/edu/educationtoday where for years now we have brought you the latest and greatest developments in education - in areas such as student performance, early childhood learning, online learning and more. Today, we are moving our blog to a new home, where we hope many more of you will find us, join us and tell us what you think.

We will continue to blog about hot topics in education around the globe and at OECD, bringing you an insider look at new findings in international student performance, skills, early childhood education, education innovation and more. Guest bloggers from within the OECD (including experts in the field) and from around the world (education ministers and education movers and shakers) will share their thoughts, listen to yours and respond to your questions and comments.

Next week look out for a post by Andreas Schleicher, all about OECD's Education at a Glance, our annual report on how countries around the world are measuring up inside and outside the classroom. You won't want to miss it!

There's nothing like having access to breaking and relevant thinking in your favourite field. Ours is education. You too? Sign up to receive our blogposts by email, join this site with Google Friend Connect, tweet out blogs you like (or those you don't) and keep coming back.

Now back to the pencil sharpeners, books and laptops ... a busy year lies ahead!

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More about who we are and what we do:

www.oecd.org/edu

www.oecd.org/education

Photo credit: © Creative Commons/Kaytee Riek

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