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Against the recent reversal of the gender gap in higher education that has been observed in many countries, this paper aims to explore why there are better chances for lower social class women to access higher education than for higher social class women in a relative comparison with the same groups of men. Based on the occupational approach and the Breen–Goldthorpe model, we demonstrate those country conditions under which stratification in individual chances to obtain higher education is more severe.

We use contextual characteristics which capture gender-based and occupational differentiation, including female labour force participation, the share of females in the service sector, and the share of males in upper-secondary vocational education. By using multilevel modelling techniques and data provided by the European Social Survey (2002–2018) for 33 countries, we have made a cross-country analysis of how the relationship between gender and class, as well as the achievement of higher education, is moderated by these features.

Our results show that a higher share of males in upper secondary vocational education in a given country is negatively associated with the likelihood of obtaining higher education, whereas a high share of females employed in services in a given country has a positive association with this likelihood. We have also found cross-level interactions between a higher share of employed females and women in the service sector, on the one hand, and those of working-class origin, on the other, that are positively associated with higher education achievement. In higher education achievement, the growing importance of horizontal differentiation based on occupation and gender has accompanied the declining power of vertical inequality based on social class.

This study combines gender and class in an analysis of patterns of inequalities of educational opportunity in different societies undergoing a post-industrialist shift.

The focus of this article is on gender justice with respect to opportunities (educational) and outcome (earnings). The main research question is whether educational opportunities are positively converted into fairness of income, and for whom and where this is the case. The importance of this study lies in the understanding that the subjective feeling of justice is a significant measure of quality of life, of the individual's subjective feeling of happiness and of the fulfilment of the goals people have reason to value.

The study takes a micro-macro approach, combining macro-level data taken from official statistics and micro-data from the 2018 European Social Survey for 25 European countries; the authors also apply multilevel modelling to the data analysis.

At individual level the authors found gender differences in the associations between education and fairness of educational opportunities. With regard to the scope of fairness, the authors emphasise that fairness of educational opportunities and net pay in European countries is less likely to be felt by someone who has a lower educational level. Higher educational expenditures are positively correlated with fairness of educational opportunities but not with fairness of net pay.

This article contributes to theoretical, empirical and policy-relevant gender justice research on the link between inequalities and justice perceptions. The authors have expanded the theoretical understanding of the concept of gender justice by taking into account the role of a specific gender norm on fairness perceptions. The norm, when asked about in a gender-neutral way, is not associated with fairness of pay, but when posed as a question specifically to women, has a negative relationship with perceptions of fair pay. The empirical contribution consists in the evaluation of individual and country mechanisms from a gender justice perspective. The policy contribution consists in questioning the belief that longer paid maternity leave is beneficial for women. In countries with long paid leave available to mothers, women reported even lower levels of fairness of net pay than men.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how individual and macro-level factors shape the work–life balance of young men and women across European countries.

The paper combines macro-level data from the official statistics with individual-level data from the Work, Family and Wellbeing (2010/2011) module of the European Social Survey. The study uses multilevel modelling to explore the factors which shape the work–life balance of men and women aged 15–34 across 24 European countries.

The findings show both differences and similarities between young men and women in how education shapes work–life balance. Higher education increases the likelihood of considering work–life balance as important in work selection for men, while lower education decreases the odds of considering this balance for women. More education is associated with lower acceptance of the traditional norm, for both men and women, and less time spent on housework. Higher share of family benefits decreases the importance of work–life balance, more so for men than for women. Work–life balance is more important for men living in conservative, Mediterranean and post-socialist welfare regimes compared to those from social-democratic regimes.

The policy implications are to more closely consider education in the transformation of gender-sensitive norms during earlier stages of child socialization and to design more holistic policy measures which address the multitude of barriers individuals from poor families and ethnic/migrant background face.

The study contributes to existing literature by applying the capability approach to the empirical investigation of work–life balance. The analytical model contains three dimensions – norms about paid/unpaid work, considering work–life balance in the choice of employment and time spent on unpaid work. Through this approach, we are able to uncover the agency inequality of young people taking into account individual level characteristics, including gender, education, ethnicity and macro-level factors.

This study seeks to ascertain whether there are regional gender differences in vocational education in Bulgaria at the upper secondary level and to shed more light on the main factors for the (non-)emergence of these differences. The research has drawn on data from the National Statistical Institute and the Centre for Information in Education in Bulgaria as well as a nationally representative school-leavers survey (2014); it has applied descriptive statistics and multilevel modelling for the data analysis. Overall, the present study demonstrates that the regional dimension is indispensable for understanding the development of vocational education and gender differentiation in education. The analysis provides evidence that the mechanism by which the education system contributes to regional gender segregation in vocational education is its opportunity structures at the regional level, which are related to vocational education offers. In addition, we found a positive association between industrial development and the share of women in engineering at the regional level.

The chapter focuses on how higher education (HE) influences the construction of social trust. Social trust is defined as one of the most important subjective aspect of people’s well-being. The analysis refers to impersonal trust and institutional trust, and uses various indicators for measuring the two, such as generalized trust, generalized fairness, trust in parliament, and trust in the legal system. The study covers 19 European countries and explores the problem at both aggregate and individual level. It draws on data from the European Social Survey (2006–2010), applying descriptive statistics and multilevel modeling for the analysis of data. The chapter argues that the higher the educational level of people is, the more trustful they are. Our findings clearly show that, at the individual level, HE influences positively the degrees of both impersonal and institutional trust. The results also suggest that the relationship between HE and trust differs substantially across European countries. As regards impersonal trust, the impact of HE is stronger in countries where people without HE have lower average levels of impersonal trust. However, with respect to institutional trust, HE tends to have a strong positive impact in countries with high levels of institutional trust among people without HE. Furthermore, both impersonal and institutional trust among HE graduates is greater in countries with full democracy than in those with a flawed democracy. This fact raises once again the question whether social trust is a characteristic of individuals or of social systems.