This article examines the extent to which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subject choice in upper secondary education explains gender differences in STEM enrollment in higher education. We adopt a cross-country approach using Germany, Ireland, and Scotland as three case studies. These countries differ in terms of both the degree of subject choice offered in upper secondary education and the relevance for higher education admission of having studied specific school subjects. Using datasets of young people from all three countries, our results indicate a stronger mediation of school subjects for Scotland than in Germany and Ireland and a remarkable gender gap in STEM enrollment in all three countries. We conclude that females studying science subjects within upper secondary education appears to be a necessary but not a sufficient condition to ensure gender equality in progression to STEM fields.

Despite a wide international literature on the effect of vocational and general education on school-to-work transition, relatively little is known about the role of having studied specific subjects in explaining inequalities in young people's labour market outcomes. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining differences in employment chances of young people who left education early, either at the end of compulsory schooling or at the end of secondary school. Using data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study, a large-scale linkage study created using data from administrative and statistical sources, we found little gender differences but strong parental background differences in school leavers' employment status and type of occupation entered. Social inequalities in labour market outcomes were only partly explained by curriculum choices. Moreover, after controlling for social origin and grades, only history and business for lower-secondary leavers and maths for upper-secondary leavers were associated with a reduction in the chances of being unemployed/ inactive.

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This paper provides new important evidence on the spatial dimension of social class inequalities in graduates’ labour market outcomes, an aspect largely overlooked within the existing literature. Using data from the HESA Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Early and Longitudinal Survey (DLHE) for the 2008/09 graduate cohort and applying multilevel logistic regression models, we investigate whether and the extent to which social class inequalities in graduates’ occupational outcomes vary depending on the job opportunities in the geographical area where they find employment. By examining different macro-level indicators, we find wider social inequalities by parental social class in areas with fewer opportunities in high professional and managerial occupations and smaller inequalities in areas with more opportunities. Interestingly, this pattern applies only to graduates who moved away from their place of origin. We interpret this finding as the result of selective migration, that is, areas with more opportunities attract the better-qualified graduates irrespective of their social origin. Finally, graduates’ HE experiences—in particular, their field of study—and sector of employment explain most of the social class gap in areas with fewer job opportunities.

This paper analyses the role that different components of the academic strength of the secondary-school curriculum (i.e. number, subjects and grades of advanced academic courses) play in explaining social origin differences in access to prestigious universities (but also to other higher education institutions) in Scotland and the USA. A central aim of the paper is to investigate whether the mechanism behind the studied patterns of inequality differs depending on the characteristics of each educational system. Our results show pronounced social class gaps in entering top higher education institutions in both Scotland and the USA. Academic curriculum plays an important role in explaining these social class differences in both countries. However, while in Scotland type of subjects taken at an advanced level is the strongest mediator for the identified social class differences, in the USA, number of advanced subjects is the strongest. Moreover, taking into account the three academic components combined entirely explains the social class differences in Scotland. Considerable inequalities which are not explained by the strength of academic curriculum remain in the USA.