Women's Worldwide Education–employment Connection: A Multilevel Analysis of the Moderating Impact of Economic, Political, and Cultural Contexts. (November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bussemakers, Carlijn; van Oosterhout, Kars; Kraaykamp, Gerbert; Spierings, Niels
• Is Part Of: World development. Volume 99(2017)
• Page Start: 28
• Page End: 41
• Publication Date: 2017-11
• Subjects: education -- employment -- women -- gender and development -- gender norms -- institutions; Economic history -- 1990- -- Periodicals; Economic assistance -- Developing countries -- Periodicals; 330.9
• DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.07.002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-750X

Abstract

Highlights: Across 74 countries worldwide, the impact of women's education on their employment is generally positive, but this impact varies significantly. The impact of women's education on their employment is clearly stronger in contexts with a higher scarcity of service sector jobs. In contexts with more conservative gender norms, women's education has a larger impact on women's employment. Labor market structures condition women's education–employment linkage in both OECD and non-OECD countries. Gender norms mainly explain why women's education has a different impact on their employment in OECD than in non-OECD countries. Summary: Education is a core driver of female employment and empowerment all over the world. As development studies have shown, the strength of this educational effect however varies considerably across countries. Theoretically, we employ mechanisms from human capital theory and modernization theory that explicate the education–employment link. Next, insights from the gender and development approach lead us to hypothesize how economic, political, and socio-cultural features of countries might moderate this effect of educational attainment. Using World Values Survey data on women surveyed in 139 country–year combinations, we empirically test whether and how a country's labor market structure, social policy, and gender norms condition the influence of women's education attainment on employment. Employing multilevel logistic regression models with cross-level interactions, our results indicate that in countries where service sector jobs are relatively scarce, having a higher education is more important for women to get a job; it seems that highereducated women push lowereducated women out of employment under those circumstances. Most importantly, women's educational attainment makes more of a difference in countries with conservative gender norms; in these countries women's employment is considerably lower than in more liberal countries, but to a lesser extent for higher educated women.