Gender equality in education

by Tracey Burns
Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills 

To mark International Women’s Day the OECD released an impressive new analysis on gender and education. Using PISA 2012 data, the report looked at where gender equality still eludes us: boys do less well in reading while girls are less likely to imagine a career in science and technology, even when they are top achievers in those subjects.

What are some of the other ways in which gender is important in education? A just released Trends Shaping Education Spotlight starts with the obvious: The vast majority of teachers are female across the OECD. This is most marked in pre-primary and primary education, where approximately 8 out of 10 teachers are women. In secondary education, 68% of lower secondary teachers in TALIS countries are female, and in countries like Estonia and the Slovak Republic, more than 80% of teachers are women.

Is this important? Among journalists and policy-makers, there is a penchant to connect the lower performance of boys (particularly in reading) to the fact that most teachers are female. However, while the argument is intuitive, research evidence does not suggest that simply bringing men into the teaching profession would improve boys’ achievement, as measured by test results. 

Aiming for a better balance of men and women among teachers can nevertheless have positive effects. Male teachers can serve as role models, particularly for those students who do not have many positive male influences in their lives. Some countries are actively seeking to increase the numbers of male teachers. In the UK for example, the Training and Development Agency (TDA) has developed a campaign aimed specifically at recruiting men into the profession, which emphasises the rewarding nature of teaching and provides taster courses for male applicants in primary schools. 

There is another way in which gender plays a role in education: While teaching is a predominantly female profession, school leaders are still more likely to be men in many countries. For example, 68% of Korean teachers are female whereas only 13% of Korean principals are women. In Finland and Portugal, 7 out of 10 teachers are women but only about 4 out of 10 principals are. On the other hand, in Norway, 61% of teachers and 58% of principals are women, and in Poland, the gender imbalance is below 10%. 

Why are women not found in the position of school leader more often, given that they make up the majority of the teaching force? Many factors determine the number of female principals in a country. The education and skill level of candidates, individual willingness to take up the role of principal, the number of female applicants, as well as gender-bias in perceptions of leadership ability play an important role. Encouraging more female leaders requires systemic efforts that go beyond the individual hiring process.   

This is important: Gender segregation in career choice results in talent loss for the individual as well as for society in all fields, not just education. Recent research suggests that gender-diverse business teams have greater success in terms of sales and profits than male dominated teams. And a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) argues that the gender gap in the labour market accounts for up to 27% of lost GDP per capita. Raising the female labour market participation to male levels could raise GDP in the US by 5%, in Japan by 9% and in Egypt by as much as 34%. 

Yet old stereotypes die hard. Perceptions of what counts as “masculine” and “feminine” vocations are formed early in life and are strongly influenced by traditional perceptions of gender roles. Women still struggle to reach top leadership positions, and are less likely to become entrepreneurs. Men are far less likely to become teachers and join other “caring” professions, such as nursing. 

So what can be done? The Scottish government has made efforts to reduce gender based occupational segregation with its “Be what you want” campaign. The campaign specifically targets 11-14 year old students in Scottish schools and tries to support the aspirations of young people by highlighting the barriers that boys and girls face when trying to enter “non-traditional” areas of work. A number of other countries are launching similar initiatives. 

These kinds of small steps could be important. Gender equality does not mean that men and women should become the same, but rather that a person’s opportunities should not depend on whether they are born female or male. Education can, and should, play a role in shaping attitudes and transforming behaviours to improve gender equity. A world with more female computer scientists as well as more male teachers and healthcare workers? Sounds good to me.

Links:
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
OECD Gender Portal
The ABC of Gender Equality in Education
The Business Benefits of Gender Diversity
Trends Shaping Education 2015 Spotlight 7
Women, Government and Policy Making in OECD Countries
Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity
Photo Credit: Male Teacher Playing Guitar With Pupils Having Music Lesson in Classroom/ @Shutterstock

Why boys and girls still don’t have an equal chance at school

by Marilyn Achiron

Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

So: girls are now widely recognised as better students than boys and as more likely to earn a university-level degree than boys. Gender equality in education is achieved!

Hang on. What happened to the boys? And what about all those high-achieving girls who still shy away from further studies in mathematics and science, and who arch an eyebrow in disbelief when someone suggests a career in engineering or scientific research?

If you want to know why real gender equality in education still eludes us, take a look at The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour, Confidence.An analysis of PISA data reveals how student performance is affected by such “intangibles” as behaviour in and outside of school, and self-confidence, and how, in turn, students’ behaviour and confidence can be influenced by parents’ and teachers’ attitudes and expectations.

So, no, we’re not there yet; but this book offers practical ways for teachers, parents and students, themselves, to shrink the gender gap in education outcomes even further – so that girls and boys have an equal chance of fulfilling their potential, both in school and beyond.

Links: 

OECD Press release: Early gender gaps drive career choices and employment opportunities, says OECD

Download the book: The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour, Confidence

OECD Gender Portal
Download the summary: PISA in Focus No. 49 What lies behind gender inequality in education?

Join a public webinar  on 5 March, 17:00 CET with Andreas Schleicher, Director of the OECD Education and Skills Directorate, and Francesca Borgonovi, Education Analyst.  Password to register OECDEDU.
Follow on twitter #OECDPISA.

Further reading:

A closer look at gender gaps in education and beyond by Stefan Kapferer, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD 
Girls do better than boys despite inequality, The Telegraph 

Girls Get Good Grades But Still Need Help. As For Boys ... SOS!, NPR news
Academic Science Isn’t Sexist, New York Times
Infographic: ©OECD

Meet the typical student

by Ignacio Marin and Corinne Heckmann
Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills

With the new academic year beginning (in the Northern hemisphere at least), more than 23 million people across the OECD and G20 countries will be heading to university for the first time this year. As the latest Education Indicators in Focus brief shows, these new students will be a more diverse group than ever before – but some things don’t change.

Who are the average new entrants?

If you look at the averages, new entry students these days will be female, 22 years old, and about to embark on over four years of study in the social sciences. But these averages conceal wide variations between nations – in some countries such as Belgium, Japan and Indonesia, students still generally enter university straight from school, whereas in places like Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden the average age is over 25, with young people tending to spend time in the workforce before going on to full time study. Completion rates vary too. On average just 70% of students will graduate with a degree, with women more likely to succeed than men, but in Japan the graduation rate is over 90% while in Sweden and Hungary it’s less than half. Not that that necessarily means their education is wasted – some students drop out because they have already found a well-paying job. In Sweden and the United States, modular systems mean students can dip in and out of university and the labour market, gradually building up the credit for a degree.

Social sciences, not sciences
Social sciences, business and the law stand out as the most popular fields of study almost everywhere, except in Finland (where engineering heads the list), and Korea and Saudi Arabia where humanities are more popular. The non-social sciences lag behind, especially among women, with 39% of male students and just 14% of female ones choosing science-related fields. In Belgium and Japan the figure was just 5% for women and even in the best performing countries (Greece, Indonesia, Italy and Mexico) just 19% of female students went for the sciences. Among the men the spread was even wider: while 58% of male students in Finland chose science-related fields – including engineering, manufacturing and construction – in Argentina it was as low as 18%.

Widening access – up to a point
Access to higher education is widening everywhere, but particularly in the fast-growing G20 economies. China has now overtaken the United States in the number of university students with India taking third place. In OECD countries 60% of young people go to university – up from 39% just 15 years earlier and students are more likely than ever to go abroad for an education. But not all the barriers to tertiary education have been swept away. Coming from an educated background still makes young people almost twice as likely to enter university than the average – and in some places more than three times as likely. Much as things have changed, there’s still more to be done to give young people an equal start.

For more information
On this topic, visit: 
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators 
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm

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