Seminar, 30 hours/M.A. level
The seminar will offer a comprehensive understanding of the role of gender inequality for education and employment from a social stratification perspective. Women’s roles have tremendously changed over the last century. In terms of educational attainment women have caught up to men and, in many countries, even overtaken them. Female students have long obtained higher grades than their male peers, they display more positive attitudes towards school, and have higher educational aspirations. However, in most industrialized societies gender disparities in the labour market and in the household endure. For example, women are disadvantaged compared to men with the same educational qualification both in terms of wage and contract duration, and they are more exposed to poverty risk when experiencing divorce or separation especially if poorly educated. The readings will examine the dynamics of gender inequality over the life-course and discuss how cumulative disadvantages mechanisms connect early age to later life outcomes in different domains.
