The Gender Yearbook 2007 raises awareness of the career gap between women and men as an important driver of the existing gender wage gap in the Flanders region in Belgium. These career gaps can to a large extent be explained by educational segregation between sexes and how the transition from school to labour market is made. Low-skilled women are particularly vulnerable in this regard.
Career gap
The ‘gender career gap’ is a concept introduced by the Gender Yearbook 2007 (Gender Jaarboek 2007 (1.44Mb PDF)), published in February 2008 by M/V United. This is an annual report published by the European Social Fund in Flanders (Europees Sociaal Fonds Agentschap Vlaanderen, ESF Agentschap Vlaanderen) to raise public awareness of the gender equality problem. The 2007 edition is dedicated to gender equality issues in the education sector. In terms of the data used, the report draws mainly on official statistics and secondary literature. The report is written by two policy research networks, namely Work and Social Economy (Steunpunt Werk en Sociale Economie, Steunpunt WSE) and Equal Chances (Steunpunt Gelijkekansenbeleid).
As in the previous Gender Yearbook 2006, the 2007 edition of the yearbook also focuses on the gender wage gap. It is estimated that women still earn on average 15% less than men. However, the 2007 yearbook highlights another phenomenon as an important driver of the gender wage gap – the existing career gap between men and women. Women end up working in labour market positions which are much less valued than those held by men. Although this career gap has a range of determinants, important influential factors are education and how the transition from school to the labour market is made.
Good school results achieved by girls
Girls perform on average better at school than boys. Moreover, girls are overrepresented in secondary schools, higher educational establishments and universities. In general, current generations of women in Flanders graduate with a higher degree than their male counterparts. However, when these women enter the labour market, this favourable situation changes. This suggests that the university degrees obtained by women are less valued in the labour market.
In this regard, educational segregation is seemingly an important driver of the continued labour market segregation. Furthermore, women accept more easily a part-time position as a first-time job. Women taking up their first job are employed more often under temporary employment contracts instead of under open-ended contracts. These differences at the start of a worker’s career are an important explanatory factor in the general career gap emerging between men and women.
Difficulties faced by low-skilled workers
Negative choices made at the outset of a worker’s career and the consequent career gap are much more evident among low-skilled women. A low level of schooling, a degree with lower labour market value and the lack of experience due to age makes the labour market situation of low-skilled female school leavers less favourable. Low-skilled jobs requiring manual labour are very often physically more demanding. For this reason, employers are quick to choose men to do these jobs. Due to these ‘harsher’ working conditions, but also because of more traditional family values, low-skilled women opt for part-time jobs or choose to take (longer) career breaks to raise children.
As a result, the career gap between male and female school leavers with a technical or vocational qualification is significant. According to the data published in the Gender Yearbook 2007, 30% of the low-skilled female school leavers had no job after one year. Even at the age of 26 years, only half of them had a job. At this age, more than 80% of the comparable male group with a technical or vocational degree had a job. Low-skilled women also have less often a full-time job. An unfavourable start in the labour market is thus very much a situation faced by a specific group of female workers, namely those with low skills. It is among this group that the gender career gap begins to emerge from the outset of employment.
Against this background, obtaining a higher educational degree is highly important for women. Highly-skilled women find a job much more easily and their employment rate remains much higher throughout their career. In 2006, 83% of highly-skilled women had a job in the Flemish labour market. This figure sharply contrasts with the 40% employment rate of low-skilled women aged between 24 and 65 years.
Policy priority
In an official response to the Gender Yearbook 2007 after it was presented to the general public, the Flemish Minister of Employment, Education and Training, Frank Vandenbroucke, recognised the problem of the gender career gap. He stated that this problem has become a top priority for the Flemish government to address: ‘Men and women have to be absolutely more equal in our society and this is a problem which has to be tackled at the time of education and in the labour market. The educational level of girls has to be increased in order to improve their equal chances. Social attitudes towards gender roles, tasks in family care and the combination of work and family life have to be transformed.’
Guy Van Gyes, Higher Institute for Labour Studies (HIVA), Catholic University of Leuven (KUL)