The Gender Revolution in Context: How Later Tracking in Education Benefits Girls

It is well established that women have surpassed men in educational attainment. The potential effect of educational institutional structures on the “rise of women” has largely been overlooked. In particular, the age of first selection into distinct educational tracks seems important, as the female-favorable gap in educational performance has been shown to widen during the high school years. Using microdata from the European Social Survey and data on tracking age reforms for 21 European countries from 1929 to 2000, we find that reforms promoting later tracking have particularly benefited girls’ years of education, net of other influential factors (gender-ideological climate and demand on the labor market). This finding shows that the rise of women is not homogeneous across institutional contexts: some educational systems are more supportive of the enhancement of women’s education than others.