Volume 29 - Article 3 | Pages 71–84
Parental Education and the Gender Gap in University Completion in Europe
Abstract
Background: A female-favorable gender gap in university completion has emerged in the majority of industrialized countries in recent decades. Research in the United States demonstrates that the female advantage in college completion is the largest among individuals with low-educated parents, but it is not known whether this pattern also exists in European countries.
Objective: This article has three main objectives: 1) to illustrate the growing female advantage in university completion across European countries, 2) to provide evidence on whether gender differences in university completion differ by parents’ level of education in those countries, and 3) to investigate whether these patterns changed across cohorts.
Methods: Using pooled data from the 2002 to 2010 European Social Survey, this article investigates gender differences in university completion by levels of parental education across three birth cohorts (1955-1964, 1965-1974, 1975-1984) in 16 European countries.
Results: A female-favorable gender gap in university completion has emerged over time in the majority of European countries but, unlike in the United States, parental education has similar effects on university completion for males and females in a majority of countries and birth cohorts.
Conclusions: The analyses demonstrate that parental education has similar effects on males' and females’ university completion across the majority of European countries studied, and is not an important predictor of the female-favorable gender gap in university completion in Europe, in contrast to the United States.
Author's Affiliation
- Anne McDaniel - University of California, Irvine, United States of America EMAIL
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
Left behind single in the partnering market? Entry into cohabiting unions by women and men with low educational attainment across regions of Europe, cohorts 1960 to 1985
Volume 51 - Article 43
| Keywords:
cohabitation,
education,
Europe,
European Social Survey,
event history analysis,
logistic regression,
marginalization,
partner selection,
singlehood,
union formation
Is single parenthood increasingly an experience of less-educated mothers? A European comparison over five decades
Volume 51 - Article 34
| Keywords:
age,
children,
cross-national comparison,
education,
Europe,
family life course,
inequality,
single motherhood
The transition to adulthood in Europe at the intersection of gender and parental socioeconomic status
Volume 51 - Article 23
| Keywords:
Europe,
Europe,
event history,
event history,
gender,
multilevel analysis,
parental socio-economic status,
stratification,
transition to adulthood
Trajectories of US parents’ divisions of domestic labor throughout the COVID-19 pandemic
Volume 51 - Article 12
| Keywords:
childcare,
COVID-19,
division of labor,
fathers,
gender,
housework,
mothers
Are highly educated partners really more gender egalitarian? A couple-level analysis of social class differentials in attitudes and behaviors
Volume 50 - Article 34
| Keywords:
attitudes,
couple analysis,
education,
educational level,
gender,
gender roles,
housework,
social class differentials
Cited References: 10
Download to Citation Manager
PubMed
Google Scholar