Creating a more inclusive, just and equitable world – the essence of sustainable development – means ensuring that all men and women, all boys and girls, can lead empowered and dignified lives. One of the key ways to achieve this goal is an inclusive and gender-equitable education of good quality that enables men and women to develop the right skills and find opportunities to use them productively. Education is also at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the international community sets itself to achieve by 2030. To that end, many countries have witnessed a remarkable evolution over the past two decades, in terms of closing the gender gap in education access and learning outcomes between girls and boys. But the reality remains more complex. As this report reveals, even when boys and girls are equally proficient in mathematics and science, their attitudes towards learning and aspirations for their future are markedly different – and that has a significant impact on their decisions to pursue further education and their choice of career.
The 2023 Gender, Education and Skills Report on the persistence of gender gaps in education and skills presents fresh insights on progress towards gender parity in education with respect to access, attainment and learning, using data from the latest rounds of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and Education at a Glance (EAG). The report tries to understand why teen boys are more likely than girls, on average, to fail to attain a baseline level of proficiency in reading, mathematics and science, and why high-performing girls do not continue investing in developing skills in areas such as mathematics and science, when compared to high-performing boys. The report also describes that despite overall gender gaps in mathematics and science being quite small, young women continue to be under-represented in STEM-related fields after leaving school. At university, men develop greater proficiency in numeracy than women, probably due to these very different career choices that men and women make. But it is also noticed that the advantage in literacy performance that girls had during compulsory education seems to narrow or completely disappear at university. These career choices are also reflected in gender disparities in the labour market: tertiary-educated women earn 76% of the earnings of their male peers. This could be possible because men are more likely than women to pursue studies in fields associated with higher earnings, such as engineering, manufacturing and construction, and information and communication technologies, while women still choose fields associated with lower earnings, including education, welfare, arts and humanities.
The evidence in the report makes clear that the gender disparities in school performance and the resultant career choices do not stem from innate differences in aptitude but rather from students’ attitudes towards learning and their behaviour in school, from how they choose to spend their leisure time, and from the confidence they have – or do not have – in their abilities as students. Many of these differences in behaviour and confidence are a direct outcome of gender norms and cultural constructs in society negatively affecting student and teacher attitudes, career choices and women’s opportunities later in life.
It is common knowledge that education is critical for sustainable development and achieving basic human rights. Now, more than ever, education has a responsibility to foster the right type of skills, attitudes and behaviour that will lead to sustainable and inclusive growth. Inclusive growth requires that education is inclusive of the development of both men and women. But gender equality in education cannot be achieved by the education sector alone. It requires concerted efforts by parents, teachers and employers to become more aware of their own conscious or unconscious biases so that they give girls and boys equal chances for success at school and beyond.
This report is a valuable contribution to the OECD’s work on gender issues, which examines existing barriers to gender equality in education and the labour market with the aim of improving policies and promoting gender equality in both OECD and partner countries. It shows clearly that we cannot rest complacent. If countries tailor policies to act upon the evidence presented in this report, they would realise that education has the power like nothing else to nurture empowered, reflective, engaged and skilled citizens who can chart the way towards a more equitable and fairer planet for all.