5 questions to Laura Lacombe (EDHEC) on gender differences in career aspirations

Why are you interested in the differences in career aspirations between (young) men and (young) women?

Laura Lacombe : We are a school: our primary role is to train students and prepare them for their future careers. It's vital that we understand their aspirations, so that we can adapt to their needs and motivations, but also push them to excel and be curious. To encourage them to leave their comfort zone and discover new things, including social issues.

When we looked at the aspirations of young people, particularly those wanting to enter EDHEC, we realised that these differed according to gender. More specifically, we studied the data collected by the EDHEC NewGen Talent Centre between 2021 and 2023 from applicants to French business schools, and decided to analyse it from a gender angle, while putting it into perspective with existing research. The result is an instructive and educational report - to be published in November - on the differences between the career aspirations of young men and women. (1)

We found that they do not have the same educational or career aspirations. Although they took the same competitive entrance exams and had a common goal of getting into a business school, these young people have clearly, and unsurprisingly, subconsciously internalised different social expectations according to their gender. This was only a relative surprise: although there are as many women as men entering our school, and therefore wanting to study management professions in the broad sense, they have been influenced from an early age by the whole of society, which more or less ‘consciously’ treats people differently according to their gender.

What questions does this report raise?

Since these differences in aspirations ultimately fuel pay and career inequalities, what can we do at our level to reduce the differences between individuals, whatever their gender? What can we do to prevent people being held back in their career aspirations because they are men or women? How can we rectify the inequalities that already exist between students when they arrive at our school? Acting within the Diversity and Inclusion Chair at a leading business school, we have to ask ourselves these kinds of questions if we hope to contribute to a fairer and more socially equitable society.

To reduce the differences between men and women in the workplace, we believe we need to ‘get to the root of the problem’. We don't want to put the blame for gendered career differences exclusively on companies. Of course they have their part to play. But we also need to be aware that the problem is much broader, that it concerns our whole society, and that the education system as a whole (from nursery school to higher education) needs to work actively towards a more egalitarian society.

What is the link between these gendered aspirations and the current face of the labour market, which you describe as marked by ‘professional segregation’?

First of all, a clarification: professional (or occupational) segregation is an expression used, among others, by Karine Briard, who worked for DARES, a ministerial statistical service. Even if the terms may seem strong, it is an expression that is used by researchers and public institutions, which shows that the phenomenon is studied and known.

Gender-based professional segregation refers to the phenomenon whereby men and women do not work in the same professions. More precisely, it refers to ‘a situation where workers are assigned, de jure or de facto, to different occupations on the basis of their sex’ (2).

Two types of professional segregation can be distinguished (2) (3).

Firstly, horizontal segregation corresponds to the concentration of one of the two genders (women or men) in certain professions. In France, only 24% of occupations are mixed (4). The remainder are so-called ‘feminised’ occupations (in which at least 65% of the workers are women) or ‘masculinised’ occupations (in which at least 65% of the workers are men). 70% of women work in ‘feminised’ occupations, and 64% of men in ‘masculinised’ occupations (5).

There is also vertical segregation: this is the tendency for women to be under-represented in occupations with ‘desirable attributes’ (in other words, high incomes or a certain level of social recognition). This also relates to the fact that men are more likely to occupy positions of high responsibility and women more likely to occupy more junior positions.

In some of the data we have analysed (1), we see that young people's aspirations are in line with this professional segregation. Pupils want to follow different student career paths: we can speak of a ‘horizontal student segregation’ of sorts, or of a ‘gendered division of orientation’ (6) which lays the foundations for occupational segregation (7). Students' wishes, if they are fulfilled, also lead to vertical segregation: the women questioned in the study are more attracted by less remunerative forms of organisation (for example, they are less attracted by private sector companies than men and more by NGOs or associations). In addition, men are more interested in working in large companies (with more than 5,000 employees), which are generally more lucrative. Large companies can be perceived as organisations where competition is strong and human contact less important; they are also places where the prospects for career development are strongest.

How would you characterise the early impact of gender differences on educational choices?

Whether we like it or not, the education of children is still very much gendered. This differentiated education comes from the family (consciously or unconsciously) but also through activities and toys, books, cartoons, etc. Even if we try to have the most neutral education possible, we will always be influenced by our representations, our unconscious biases and the world around us. For example, our social environment is still unequal (which reinforces gender stereotypes), whether in the media (only 34% of airtime (television and radio) is devoted to women) (8) or in politics (36% of members of the National Assembly are women) (9).

Our gendered expectations have then a greater or lesser impact on children's behaviour, tastes, skills and career choices.

Our unconscious biases, and more specifically the stereotypes we have integrated, will give rise to different expectations depending on the gender of the subject. And this is the case even for babies! Adults attribute different emotions and dispositions to very young children depending on their sex.

In an experiment with which all psychology students are familiar, researchers (10) demonstrated, as early as 1976, the different projections adults made about the behaviour and emotions of babies according to their gender. They showed the same video of a baby playing 4 games; half the participants in the study were told that the baby was a boy, David, and the other half that the same baby was a girl called Dana. Those taking part in the study were then asked to rate various aspects of the baby. David was perceived as stronger and more active than Dana. When the baby screamed, they tended to attribute it to anger if they thought it was a boy and fear if they thought it was a girl.

Coming back to school choices, there is an internalisation of the ‘gender schema’ (11) for both girls and boys, which leads them to opt for training and careers that reflect this gendered logic. This is due to a number of factors. For example, women's self-confidence is lower (12), and young women anticipate difficulties in reconciling work and family life (13). While they are still students, individuals have already integrated the different gender norms relating to the reconciliation of lifetimes: female students opt for less risky, more stable careers with fewer constraints, at the expense of potential greater professional and salary advancement (14). As a result, occupational segregation is maintained.

How can these discrepancies be corrected at company level?

There are various ways of countering these inequalities: they can be at the level of public policy. The introduction of quotas (Copé-Zimmermann law, Rixain law) has, for example, enabled women to enter management bodies. This is one way of breaking through the glass ceiling (although there is still a lot of work to be done (15)).

At their level, companies also have levers to put in place to give women access to the same careers as men (functions, salaries, career paths, etc.). They could provide support for women by identifying talent and setting up mentoring programmes, for example. Organisations should also offer training on gender inequality and stereotypes to all employees, if possible, and to managers as a priority. The introduction and application of egalitarian recruitment processes (anonymous CVs, recruiter training, pay and skills grids, etc.) could also help the careers of women (and certain minorities).

Finally, support for parenthood is also vital in our view. As a reminder, mothers take more frequent breaks from work, and this increases with the number of children (16). We believe it is important to encourage people to take paternity leave, and even to increase it (17). Companies should also put in place measures to improve the balance between lifetimes (teleworking, company day nurseries for children, etc.).

References

(1) Our report is based on several sets of data collected by the EDHEC NewGen Talent Centre between 2021 and 2023 from applicants to French business schools. These data have been analysed by the Diversity & Inclusion Chair from the perspective of gender differences and have been linked to various pre-existing studies on gender differences in education and the world of work.

(2) Briard, K. (2020). Temps partiel et ségrégation professionnelle femmes-hommes : Une affaire individuelle ou de contexte professionnel ? Travail et emploi, 161(1), 31‑60.

(3) Meulders D., Plasman R., Rigo A., O’Dorchai S. (2010), Meta-Analysis of Gender and Science Research Topic Report: Horizontal and Vertical Segregation. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

(4) Observatoire des inégalités. (2022). La mixité des métiers progresse, mais bien lentement. Observatoire des inégalités.

(5) Briard, K. (2022). Métiers « de femmes », métiers « d’hommes » : en quoi les conditions de travail des femmes et des hommes diffèrent-elles ?. DARES

(6) Vouillot, F. (2007). L’orientation aux prises avec le genre. Travail, genre et sociétés, 18(2), 87‑108.

(7) Guilley, E., Arruda, C., Jacques-Antoine, G., Gianettoni, L., Gross, D., Joye, D., Moubarak, E., & Müller, K. (2014). Maçonne ou avocate : Rupture ou reproduction sociale ? Service de la Recherche en Education, Lausanne.

(8) La représentation des femmes à la télévision et à la radio - Rapport sur l'exercice 2023. Arcom

(9) Assemblée nationale : recul de la parité au Palais-Bourbon à l'issue des législatives anticipées (juil. 2024). LCP.fr

(10) Condry, J., & Condry, S. (1976). Sex Differences : A Study of the Eye of the Beholder. Child Development, 47(3), 812‑819.

(11) Valian, V. (1999). Why So Slow? : The Advancement of Women. The MIT Press.

(12) Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2016, January 5). How Age and Gender Affect Self-Improvement. Harvard Business Review.

(13) Gianettoni, L., Simon-Vermot, P., & Jacques-Antoine, G. (2010). Orientations professionnelles atypiques : Transgression des normes de genre et effets identitaires. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 41‑50.

(14) Wagner-Guillermou, A.-L., & Barth, I. (2015). Femmes-hommes : Une inégalité librement consentie ? @GRH, 14(1), 47‑71

(15) Harnay, S., & Rebérioux, A. (2022). Pour une véritable égalité homme-femme au sein des conseils d’administration des entreprises. Post-Print, Article hal-03924333.

(16) Insee (2022). Emploi, chômage, revenus du travail. Insee Références.

(17) Le congé de paternité et d'accueil de l'enfant : Représentations et attentes (2022) Chaire Diversité & Inclusion de l'EDHEC.