Education in States and Nations: 1991

(ESN) Indicator 22: Educational equity for women

The degree of educational equity for women in a society can be measured as the proportion of persons in the population aged 25 to 64 who attained each of various levels of education and who were women. A value of 50 percent reflects proportional equality among males and females, while a value above 50 or below 50 percent indicates an over-representation or under-representation, respectively, of females at a given level of educational attainment. Since educational attainment is often a determinant of other social or economic outcomes, such as labor market participation, occupational mobility, quality of life, and a full, efficient use of a country's or state's human resources, gender differences in educational attainment may indicate a broader social inequality between males and females.

• The proportion of women among those with less than an upper secondary degree in 1991 was 55 percent or more in 10 of the 20 other countries reported here. However, no U.S. state had a proportion that large in 1990.

• With the exception of non-university higher education, the United States and Canada had similar proportions of women at every level of educational attainment. When compared to their North American counterparts, the other four G-7 countries represented here had higher female proportions at the less than upper secondary level (by as much as 21 percentage points in Germany), equal or lower proportions at the upper secondary level (by as much as 9 percentage points in the United Kingdom and France), and equal or lower proportions at the university level (by as much as 10 percentage points in Germany).

• The proportion of women among university graduates was less than half in every country or state. In 14 of the 20 other countries represented here the female proportion of university graduates was 43 percent or less; however, only 3 of the U.S. states reported percentages that low.

Notes on interpretation:

Although the educational attainment of a population is an indicator of the current skill level of the workforce, it is not necessarily a measure of success in educating a large proportion of the population. Within the 25- to 64-year-old age group, there may be many who have moved out of the country or state where they received their education. Thus, particularly in some U.S. states, large segments of the resident population may have been educated elsewhere.

There are marked differences among countries with respect to whether certain programs are classified as belonging to the university, non-university, or upper secondary sector. For example, in some countries, programs leading to qualifications in teaching and nursing are considered to be university programs; in others, they are non-university programs. Furthermore, some programs that are begun subsequent to the completion of general secondary education are classified as non-university higher education in parts of Canada and the United States, whereas they are defined as upper secondary education in most other countries. To the extent that enrollment in any of these programs tends to be dominated by one gender, that can distort comparisons across countries using this indicator. For example, if most nursing students are female in each of two countries, but one country classifies nursing education as a university program while the other classifies it as non- university higher education, the first country may have a higher female proportion at the university level and a lower female proportion at the non- university higher education level.

Table 21d

Figure 22a