Most countries around the world have won the battle to provide universal primary education, but the picture is much more mixed at secondary and higher education levels, while policy also needs to keep a firm eye on ensuring the continuous improvement of the quality of education. Women are still less likely than boys to even start secondary education in Western, Eastern and Middle Africa and Southern Asia. Enrolment is less of a problem in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, where education is generally compulsory up to age 15-16. But men are more likely to drop out before completing secondary education, particularly in the high-income countries. As a result, in many countries across the world younger women are increasingly better educated than young men in OECD countries. In reading skills, for example, men lag behind girls at the end of compulsory education to the equivalent of a year’s schooling, on average, and are far less likely to spend time reading for pleasure. Men are ahead in mathematics but the gender gap is small compared to reading. But yet the women are still less likely to choose scientific and technological fields of study, and even when they do, they are less likely to take up a career in these fields – a concern given skills shortages in the workplace, the generally more promising career and earnings prospects in these fields, and the likelihood of positive spillovers from more skilled workers in these fields to innovation and growth. Such decisions are taken very early in life in OECD countries, so one answer should be to focus more work on gender stereotyping and attitude changing at a young age.
Gender stereotyping frequently takes place in subtle ways at home, in schools and in society. If primary teachers are mainly women, and secondary teachers, particularly in the sciences, are predominantly men, what