Higher Education: gendered processes, outcomes and implications for human development

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FEMINISM COUNTS Quantitative Methods and
Feminist Research 7th November 2008, University
of Warwick Research as evidence
understanding the world in order to change it
Kate PurcellInstitute for Employment
Research, University of Warwick
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What Im going to talk about

• A little bit of biography where Im coming from
  epistemologically, ontologically and
  methodologically
• Feminism and doing research that provides
  evidence to inform policy and practice
• The importance of measuring, counting and mapping
  inequalities and differences
• Higher education expansion
• Occupational change
• Careers
• The power of mixed methods research.

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Background the personal is political research
evolution over the last 30 years

• Methodologically policy-related quantitative
  research ethnography economic sociology
• Industrial relations /industrial sociology/
  FEMINISM / gender at work/ Labour market
  change/ Economic and organisational
  restructuring /occupational change
• Gender inequalities in employment and careers
• The implications of HE expansion on labour
  market change
• Participation in HE, subject choices and the
  'Knowledge Economy
• Higher education, partnership and family
  formation

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Feminist methodology?

• Critical - of concepts, definitions and
  categories
• Reflexive
• Concerned to minimise power relativities
  particularly between researchers and researched
• Real world research and eclectic interested
  in ALL evidence
• Politically informed and engaged.

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Data sources and methods drawn on

• National administrative data sources (e.g.
  Universities and Colleges Admissions Service,
  Censuses of Population and Labour Force Survey
  data
• Longitudinal graduate surveys (1995 graduates
  recontacted in 1998/9, 2002/03 and 2005, 1999
  graduates surveyed in 2003-4 and first sweep of
  new 2006 higher education applicant census)
• Follow-up qualitative interviews with sub-samples
  of respondents
• (See www.warwick.ac.uk/go/glmf for details)

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Participation by young people in Higher
Education, Age Participation Index (API) GB 1961
to 2006
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Students in higher education by type of course
and gender (UK, 1970/71 2000/01)
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Why?

• Human capital in particular,
  university-educated labour is increasingly
  regarded as crucial to economic development and
  competitiveness
• successive UK governments have invested in
  increasingly high levels of education on
  assumption that knowledge-based skills and
  innovation are increasingly crucial for
  competitiveness
• evidence that educated labour is more innovative
  and adaptable
• development of social and material educational
  infrastructure.
• Economic restructuring global, sectoral,
  organisational
• Changing demand for skills and knowledge due to
• transformation of UK manufacturing from
  labour-based to knowledge-based (e.g. growth of
  science-based industries chemicals,
  biotechnology, ICT depends on highly skilled
  and educated labour)
• growth and globalisation of market services.
• Impact of technology on information management
  and communication.
• Change in sexual division of labour and global
  concern with the eradication inequalities.

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UCAS tariff points by gender
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Self-assessment of key skills prior to HE entry,
by gender
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Self-rated excellent or very good
self-confidence, by ethnic origin and gender
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Degree of clarity about career ambitions, by
gender
Source Futuretrack Stage 1 survey (2006)
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Not enough information about items identified,
comparing selected school students responses by
gender
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Proportions of applicants opting for selected
subjects, by gender
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Subject applied for, comparing male and female
distributions (accepted applicants)
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Achievement at first degree level by sex UK,
2005/06
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Average annual gross earnings of 1995 graduates
by gender 
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The combined effects of various factors on the
gender difference in annual earnings of 1995
graduates seven years after graduation
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Sector of employment at time of survey, by gender
Source Class of 99 survey (Purcell et al. 2006)
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Occupation held at time of survey

Source Class of 99 survey (Purcell et al. 2006)
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• We have taken economic theory and econometric
  techniques as far as we can, yet there are still
  unexplained inequalities in earnings and career
  outcomes.
• AND OUTCOMES (-EVEN REWARDS FROM WORK) ARE NOT
  JUST EARNINGS
• AND OTHER DIFFERENCES CAN BE COUNTED..
• Qualitative research (oral accounts of work
  histories, reasons given for decisions taken and
  accounts of employment experiences) indicate
• different contributory factors in different
  work contexts
• the importance of partnership and fertility
  intentions
• the importance of public versus private
  employment experiences
• the role of values and motivations
• social background, cultural capital and
  self-confidence as contributory factors

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The impact of sector and occupation three
examples
Source Seven Years On a survey of the career
paths of 1995 graduates (Purcell and Elias 2005)
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The SOC(HE) classification

• Traditional graduate occupations
• Modern graduate occupations
• New graduate occupations
• Niche graduate occupations
• Non-graduate occupations
• See Elias and Purcell 2004 NIER article (on IER
  website)

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The changing structure of graduate occupations in
the UK, 1980 - 2000
Source New Earnings Survey Panel Dataset
1975-2000
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Use of skill clusters in current jobs by SOC(HE)
Source Graduate Careers 7 Years On transcribed
follow-up interview data ( 201 respondents)
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Trends in the graduate labour market, by
occupation, gender and earnings, 26-35 year olds
in full-time jobs in 1993-94 and 2004-06
(Source LFS data plus ongoing work by Purcell
and Elias, currently being revised for
publication in 2009)
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Partnership and careers 7 years after
graduation expectation of achieving a higher
position within the next five years
Source Graduate Careers 7 Years On Survey
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Significant quantitative research findings that
dont get talked about enough and rarely make
headlines

• Higher education expansion has been
  disproportionately the increase of womens HE
  participation
• Women more likely than men to participate in
  HE and they achieve better results.
• But similarly-qualified female applicants to HE
  have lower chance of acceptance than males...
• And gendered outcomes include
• persistent and increasing gender pay gap as
  careers progress
• gender segmentation in graduate jobs
• lower reported female satisfaction with career
  development
• persistent under-representation of women in top
  jobs
• significantly lower fertility among female
  graduates (around one third remaining childless
  at age 40).

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The completion of motherhood 22-26 year old
women in 1981 by whether or not have had own
children by 2001, by degree and occupation
Source Longitudinal Census analysis (Purcell and
Elias (2007 and work in progress)
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Findings from quantitative analysis of graduate
careers and outcomes

• Higher education choices gendered in terms of
  subject choices and qualifications achieved
• Women benefit from degree financially more than
  men BUT
• Gender pay gap that widens as careers progress
  (from first job to outcomes 7 years on)
• Gendered graduate labour market in terms of
  sectoral, occupational outcomes
• Graduate women are more likely to be in
  non-graduate employment than male peers and are
  less likely to be satisfied with career
  progression
• Living in partnerships and having children widens
  gender pay gap and impacts on career planning.
• BUT
• Quantitative research How many? How often?
  Which categories? When? and How much? Do not
  explain enough the big question WHY? remains.

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• Qualitative research (oral accounts of work
  histories, reasons given for decisions taken and
  accounts of employment experiences) indicate
• different contributory factors in different
  work contexts
• the importance of partnership and fertility
  intentions
• the importance of public versus private
  employment experiences
• the role of values and motivations
• social background, cultural capital and
  self-confidence as contributory factors.

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The qualitative follow-up interviews

• Women value high earnings less and having work of
  social value more than men BUT similarities in
  career attitudes and expectations and may plan
  lifecycle careers rather than sequential careers
• High-flying women, particularly those who want to
  have children, are coerced into or make different
  choices, report reduced bargaining power than
  male peers (- maternity leave, taking advantage
  of flexibility rights after childbirth, succumb
  to informal peer group pressures...)
• Surprising incidence of women in early-mid-30s
  making career changes as a result of values
  (desire for generativity or withdrawal from
  impossible pressures?) and for expediency in
  terms of accommodating family-building plans.
• Most people do not make work choices and career
  decisions purely in terms of their individual
  interests the notion of careers and employment
  choices as individual needs radical rethinking.
• Need to reconsider work group interconnections (
  back to Kanter)!

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Kate.Purcell_at_warwick.ac.ukSome of the
statistics cited in the presentation are not
fully referenced or derive from ongoing work.
Please do not cite without permission.For
further information and links relating to the
research drawn on for this presentation and IERs
wider programmes of higher education and labour
market research and related projects see
alsohttp//www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/resea
rch/glmf