How to promote equal opportunities for women and men through desegregation of vocational secondary education?

26/04/2017

Girls hardly ever enrol technical studies in vocational secondary education, which is one of the main drivers of women’s disadvantageous position in the labour market.This was the main message of participants of the international worshop organised in Prague as the closing event of the project „Girls can do it!” 

Vocational education is highly segregated at all levels of secondary school in all of the Visegrad countries. Patterns largely follow traditional gender roles, with the the proportion of of boys reaching as high as 90% in technical fields. In recent years, boys have made some inroads to mixed fields of study, but girls hardly. Consequences of this gender segregation in the labour market are lower employment rates and earnings for women. Promoting non-traditional career choices of women and men can significantly reduce the problem. It may also prevent the slowdown of economic development of these countries due to the lack of qualified skilled workers in a rapidly growing industries, especially associated with new technologies.