Higher Education as Modulator of Gender Inequalities: Evidence of the Spanish Case
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Abstract
Raising educational levels may help to reduce inequalities between men and women in certain social and economic aspects. Using statistics for Spain, we analyse labour market behaviours such as the rates of activity and unemployment by sex according to the educational level. The results reveal that the differences between men and women decrease as the educational level increases. In particular, the modulator effect of education is very important at the higher level, where differences in labour market behaviour between men and women with an university education almost disappear, except in terms of salaries. Nevertheless, it can be seen that the current economic crisis has reduced the modulator role of education in gender differences in Spain.
Keywords
education labour market inequality and genderNotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. José M. Pastor and Carlos Peraita wish to thank the Spanish Ministry of Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness for its financial support (ECO2011-23248).
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