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Ältere Frau und älterer Mann bei der Arbeit im Supermarkt (refer to: Countering the shortage of skilled workers – concrete starting points for the labour market) | Source: © WavebreakMediaMicro/stock.adobe.com

Press releaseCountering the shortage of skilled workers – concrete starting points for the labour market

The skills and labour shortage is already posing major challenges for the labour market in Germany. The BiB has identified in its research ways to offset the future decline in the labour force.

Peer-Reviewed Articles in Scientific JournalsInformation intervention on long-term earnings prospects and the gender gap in major choice

Peter, Frauke; Schober, Pia; Spiess, C. Katharina (2023)

European Sociological Review (online first)

DOI: 10.1093/esr/jcad055

This study investigates whether an intervention that provided high school seniors with information on costs and economic returns to tertiary education and on the long-term earnings prospects of college graduates from different study fields enhances the probability that male and female students opt for financially more rewarding study fields and for business-related or STEM fields with a lower share of women. It extends our understanding on the potentials of information interventions for reducing gender segregation in tertiary education. We draw on a field experiment in one German federal state, Berlin, which included a randomized information intervention, and analyse longitudinal data from 1,036 students in schools with a high share of less privileged students. Our results show that a short and low-cost information intervention on costs and returns to college education, including returns in different fields of study, can substantially reduce women’s enrolment in care/social subjects, increase their enrolment in other, non-technical fields while also increasing men’s enrolment in technical fields with above-average earnings. The overall effects appear limited in challenging the gender-typicality of enrolment choices, as students tend to choose more profitable majors while avoiding gender-atypical fields.