Initial Education, Gender Role Attitude and Occupational Sex Segregation Effects on Adult Men’s Educational Trajectories

• In Event: 052 - Regular Session. Education and Gender: Gendered Transitions out of High School

Abstract

Adult men in most advanced economies face risks of job displacement and weakening labor market attachment as industrial jobs vanish. Yet they remain reluctant to enter “female” service occupations and are less likely than adult women to pursue education leading to higher-wage “knowledge work.” Why is this so? We use the National Survey of Families and Households (1987-2002) to examine adult men’s (age 40 and under at Wave 1) transitions into formal schooling and lifetime degree attainment. Although the educational attainment literature stresses that the level and the timing of attainment is shaped by early socioeconomic dis/advantage and school institution effects we find that gender socialization—as internalized attitudes from childhood forward and as adult exposure to gender-segregated work—has as long a reach and perhaps even stronger effects. Net of initial educational attainment and social origins, adults men with more traditional gender ideology or with experience in male sex-typed tasks are less likely to return to school or attain higher degrees.

Authors

• Cheryl Elman, University of Akron

• Jenny Chesters, University of Canberra