How do differences between men and women emerge on the labour market?

In the last 5 years, we worked intensively, within the context of the SONAR-project, on the implementation of a detailed longitudinal database on the transition from school to work among Flemish youth. With this research project, we wish to further examine why women, compared to men, enter less easily into, and take in less interesting positions in, the labour market. This is despite the better educational achievement of girls in school. In a meritocracy, it normally is expected that better school results also induce better labour market opportunities. But women still are concentrated in less-paid jobs. To explain the gender differences in the transition from school to work, we advance two crucial elements: the different subject choices of boys and girls on the one hand, and the role of family formation and parenting on the other hand. With this research project, we will study the extent to which subject choice and family formation reverse the advantage of girls at school to a disadvantage at the entrance into the labour market and for the further development of their professional career. The SONAR-data will be used as the main source for the analyses, but we also plan to check and compare our results with other databases (the data of LOSO, other databases available in the research group, and data of internationally comparable research.