The evolution of gender-based differences in university education and insertion in the labor market in Spain from the seventy to the present years

Abstract

Of all the phenomena of social change that have occurred in Spain in recent times, two have been especially relevant, on the one hand, the remarkable rise in the educational level of the population that has led to changes in the levels of activity and employment as the educational level has been modified of the population of working age, and on the other, the increasing access of women to the labor market and their permanence in it. These two phenomena have been singularly intense in what refers to women and higher education, being this group the one that has led to a stronger incorporation into the labor market compared to previous times in recent history. However, labor indicators show, even today, great inequalities according to gender among the population with higher education. We investigate the course of the evolution of gender differences in terms of university education, and its consequent correlation with the insertion of women in the labor market over the past five decades, focusing on some indicators of gender inequality. We will argue from an epistemological perspective of women, feminists, and gender approach the thesis that the gender factor acts as a manifest element of discrimination beyond the educational and formation value of human capital.