Project summary:
Gender differences in educational trajectories and job careers have changed dramatically over the life course and across birth cohorts. There has been an impressive equalization and even partial reversal of educational inequalities of men and women across cohorts. At the same time, however, gender-specific subject orientations, competencies, educational choices and occupation-specific interests seem to be quite stable. Women’s better education clearly has improved their chances at labor market entry and their career opportunities. However, in Germany women still seem to experience a weakening of their career prospects at the time of first birth. This project aims to describe and analyze the emergence of gender-specific structures of educational and job careers and to compare these patterns across cohorts. The project takes an explicit life course perspective and utilises longitudinal data from the new National Educational Panel Study (NEPS).