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1: A classification of graduate occupations based upon the 2000 Standard Classification of Occupations -SOC(HE)
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Structural disadvantages and the waste of female talent in science have been diagnosed for all states in the European Community by several studies of the European Commission. Women are still faced with a so called glass ceiling which hinders them to get into high positions, a phenomenon which is often also described as a “leaky pipeline” as with ev...
The improvement in women’s labor conditions and the elimination of segregation and other forms of direct or indirect discrimination have become one of the major challenges of the international political agenda, and as so have been included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched by the UN in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development....
Citations
... A report by the Harvard School of Education indicates inter-personal behavior among women students as both deterrents and encouragement to leadership among peers (Walsh, 2015). Education and skills are pivotal while students' graduate to take on leadership roles (Purcell et al., 2006). This supported through mentoring, tends to accentuate preparedness among students (Brungardt, 1996;Enlow, 2014) toward individual efficiency (Leithwood and Jantzi, 2008) and collective effectiveness (Hiller et al., 2006). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of barriers to career progression among female university students. While significant literature has examined career enhancement in the context of employed women, little work has explored the perceptions of future career challenges of females about to enter the workforce and embark on their careers. This study derives its motivation from research findings that confirm that women need additional focused preparation for career advancement opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a sample of 484 Indian female university students located in the United Arab Emirates and India. The study uses the established Career Pathways Survey scale (Smith et al. , 2012a) to measure the four dimensions Denial, Acceptance, Resignation and Resilience to career progression. Structural equation modeling was used to model the four constructs as indicators of perceived barriers to progress.
Findings
The study finds that among the female students about to embark on their career journey, there is a strong desire toward achieving career success. The model is validated by the use of a structural equation model, and findings indicate that there is a strong sense of Resilience and an element of uncertainty about whether perceived career progression will be satisfying overall. No significant differences were observed in the perceptions across the two geographical locations. The findings suggest that continued efforts in preparing female graduates for career success are warranted.
Practical implications
The Career Pathways Survey may be a useful method to assist young women in identifying their career goals prior to entering the workforce. Interventions through training programs during their higher education may be beneficial in addressing perceptions that might hinder their later career growth.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the understanding of the perceived barriers to career progression for women. Prior research has concentrated on career progression in the context of employed women. This study extends that work to understand the perceptions of women about to embark on their career journey.
... However, among both men and women the growth in young people undertaking higher education studies has been greatest among those from higher occupational family backgrounds and substantially lesser among those from manual worker family backgrounds, thus maintaining rather than reducing class inequality (Blanden & Machin, 2013;Boliver, 2011;Lindley & Machin, 2012;Mayhew, 2015;Perkin, 1972;Purcell, Elias, & Wilton, 2006). ...
... For example, a cross-national comparative study has suggested a link between societal level emphasis on paid work and status and related centrality of breadwinning to notions of hegemonic masculinity and 'good fatherhood', in turn restricting men's engagement in unpaid work in the home (Thébaud, 2010). Along similar lines, a longitudinal study of university graduates in the UK also found that the self-evident privileging of the male partner's career on the grounds of the importance of his income was not unequivocally reversed in relationships where the woman earned substantially more, and both women and men were more likely to expect that the female partner in their relationship would accommodate her employment to raise their children (Purcell et al., 2006;Wilton & Purcell, 2010). ...
Are gender inequalities in the UK labour market narrowing as younger cohorts replace older ones? Over the past several decades, the labour market participation of women, and especially mothers, has increased extensively and the gap in the employment rates of women and men has shrunk drastically. At the same time, extensive educational expansion has been greater among women than men, thus closing the qualifications gap. The gender wage gap has reduced overall and is lowest among younger age groups. These substantial changes have been referred to collectively as a gender revolution. Yet there is also extensive evidence of enduring gendered inequalities in time spent in unpaid work and childcare. Social expectations that childrearing is primarily women’s responsibility, also reflected and reinforced in UK leave and benefit policies, mean that mothers are more likely to adjust their employment to accommodate childrearing. The focus of this thesis on parenthood and paid work is motivated by a concern about the cumulative life course costs of such adjustments in the UK policy context. The project describes labour market and educational changes since the Second World War and considers whether and how those changes have promoted greater gender equality at the classed intersection of paid work and childrearing. The research combines original empirical analyses of large-scale UK surveys, with a feminist analysis of policy as gendering practices in order to contextualise the empirical findings with a more structural perspective of gender that is lacking in the survey data. Documenting the persistence of the gendered and classed disadvantage for people born at different points in the 20th century, particularly when they transition to parenthood, the findings provide insight into how gendered social change is unfolding in the UK, and challenge the idea that gender inequality is in the process of disappearing of its own accord.
... The move from élite to mass higher education over the last twenty years has created a supply of highly qualified (degree-holding) but not necessary talented and skilled labour. It is also argued that despite wider access to higher education, social and economic inequalities still exist (Hilton, 2008;Iannelli, 2007;Little, 2008;Mourshed et al, 2014;Purcell et al., 2005Purcell et al., , 2006. Different higher education systems and qualification frameworks still exist throughout the EU despite recent harmonisation efforts under the Bologna agreement. ...
The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of higher education and the graduate labour markets in selected European countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) in the context of the expectations of graduates and prospective employers, and respective recruitment and selection practices. Expectations of graduating students from a number of European collaborating universities are sought and analysed in order to find out about a match between the knowledge and skills of graduates and the needs of European employers. The study examines the process of graduate recruitment, employee and employer expectations, and the role of higher education institutions in meeting such expectations. Primary data was gathered from 252 employers and 485 final year (graduating) students through the use of questionnaires. The analysis of the data collected has revealed different approaches to but similar methods of graduate recruitment between the four countries. Despite the current differences in higher education systems and labour market trends, the expectations of employers and graduating students are more similar than different. It is concluded that EU graduates will have good employment prospects in an integrated labour market.
... While much of the literature in this field has focused on the experiences of female entrants (e.g. Ceci et al., 2009;Purcell et al., 2006), research also identifies barriers faced by students from other non-traditional backgrounds (e.g. Wynarczyk & Hale, 2009;Reay et al., 2005). ...
This paper contributes to the empirical evidence on participation and attainment in higher education by reviewing the patterns of entry and success of undergraduate students. It examines the characteristics of entrants to different subjects and considers the role that subject studied plays in determining the likelihood of graduating with a ‘good’ degree. The data used were drawn from the administrative records of over 38,000 UK-domiciled undergraduate students from one ‘elite’ British university. Despite considerable between-subject variation in degree outcomes, multivariate analysis of the relationship between students’ social and academic characteristics and achievement at university revealed that once social background and prior attainment had been controlled for, the subject students studied added little explanatory power to models predicting final degree classifications. Differences in degree outcome were most strongly related to attainment on entry to higher education, sex and ethnicity. In contrast with attainment during the earlier phases of education, the relationship with occupational class was relatively weak. Disparities between the proportion of higher level classifications awarded in different subjects can be largely explained by the background characteristics of the students who choose (and are accepted) to study on these degrees. This finding has particular implications for policies aimed at increasing both the number and quality of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates in what is often argued to be a ‘shortage’ or ‘priority’ area.
... In particular there is considerable debate over the extent to which new job creation lies extensively in the knowledge-intensive sectors (such as ICT, advanced manufacturing and research and development) and requires an ever-expanding supply of generic graduate competencies and knowledge (e.g. Brown Purcell et al. 2006) shows that certain sections of the graduate labour market find it more difficult to access appropriate and well-rewarded employment and that the graduate labour supply is divided on the basis of, amongst other characteristics, gender, social class background and ethnicity. However, far from eradicating traditional disadvantage, the employability discourse has compounded problems of social reproduction by placing the blame for relatively low labour market achievement in the hands of the individual and effectively removing structural and political reasons from the debate over inequality (Moreau & Leathwood 2006). ...
... The qualitative data provided little evidence of female respondents experiencing explicit obstacles in the labour market, although previous studies have shown clearly that direct and indirect discrimination continue to prove barriers to access to opportunities for women, especially in particular sectors (such as the legal profession, ICT and manufacturing). For example, Purcell et al. (2006) found, in extensive qualitative research among female graduates ten years after graduation, that a key explanation for obstacles to the achievement of equal opportunities for women and men lay in the micro–politics of the workplace and informal and cultural constraints and pressures. Given the patterns of employment outcomes presented, the notable differences in the early labour market experiences of male and female B&M graduates and the lack of explanations based on differences in values, attitudes and choices, this data would seem to imply that these obstacles, explicit or implicit, are in place even in very early career and are not easily overcome simply by addressing the supply-side characteristics of the labour market equation. ...
Two dominant rationales are offered by UK policymakers for the continued expansion of higher education: to service the high-skill labour requirements of a knowledge economy, and to increase educational and employment opportunities for under-represented groups. The discourse of employability connects these two rationales in a simplistic manner. Individual employability is described as both the means by which to obtain and maintain high-quality employment and to eradicate the social reproduction of inequality. However, evidence drawn from a survey of graduate careers suggests that for a cohort of recent business and management graduates, the relationship between employability and employment is far from straightforward. The data suggest that traditional labour market disadvantage still appears to be an impediment to achievement, regardless of the extent to which graduates develop employability skills during their undergraduate studies.
... Previous research has shown that the work-life interface for highly-qualified women has tended to differ from less-qualified female labour market participants in a number of important ways. They are typically more likely to remain in paid work throughout their adult lives or to have a shorter gap than less-qualified women when having children, to work fulltime and to develop successful careers (Joshi 2002 (Purcell et al. 2006), additional analysis of these data was undertaken, and new qualitative data were collected in follow-up interviews with a sub-sample of the graduates previously interviewed, selected with the explicit focus on gender inequality and career transitions. career development (Sekaran and Hall 1989) within partnerships tend to develop or accelerate during the family-building 'phase'. ...
An argument about the declining significance of class and gender as structural constraints in British society has become common in mainstream sociological theory. Mobility, reflexivity, and detraditionalization are seen as key characteristics of a post-Fordist, post-structural society. In feminist theory, however, debates about the reconstitution of class and gender, as well as the symbolic meaning of class, challenge assumptions about detraditionalization. I assess these arguments through an exploration of the consequences of women's changing labour market position and the contradictions between employment and caring responsibilities. I argue that emerging class differences and widening inequalities between women, as well as new class relationships in the home, should be explored further.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the impact of partnership and family‐building on the aspirations, expectations and orientations to work of a sample of highly qualified women working across a range of industry sectors.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on both qualitative and quantitative data collected in a longitudinal study of the early careers of UK graduates, incorporating both a large‐scale questionnaire survey and detailed interviews with a sample of respondents.
Findings
This paper highlights the persistence of gender asymmetries in both employment and domestic partnership and shows the complex decision‐making process which determines career prioritization among equally highly qualified partners. It also provides evidence of change in the values, priorities and orientations to work and the work‐life balance of UK graduates as they progress through early career development.
Practical implications
The extent to which highly qualified women use (and are sometimes precipitated by circumstances into using) the life stage associated with stable partnership formation and family‐building to reassess values and priorities has implications for both policymakers and employers. In particular, employers need to take account of changing orientations in work and life stage in formulating effective recruitment and retention strategies for high‐qualified workers.
Originality/value
This paper provides new data on how dual‐career partnerships negotiate the transition from, in career terms, single entities into dyads and the dynamics of gender role change and stability.
