Can Continuing Vocational Training Help to Close the Gender Pay Gap?

The question of whether men and women receive unequal financial returns from continuing vocational training (CVT) has the potential to provide an impetus for tackling the gender pay gap. Since the 2020s, women in Germany have tended to participate more than men in non-formal CVT, i.e. flexible and often course-based learning activities. This raises hopes that the gender pay gap can be tackled by increasing women's participation. However, the value of CVT is measured less by quantity than by the opportunities it offers for career development. Whether participation in CVT can reduce the gender pay gap depends first and foremost on whether there is a corresponding financial return. Looking at the current state of research, there are few (international) studies on the gendered returns to CVT, both internationally and in Germany. Theoretically, based on the Relational Inequality Theory (Tomaskovic-Devey & Avent-Holt 2019), participation in CVT can be seen as an impetus for the (re)allocation of financial resources in the company. We argue that women are less likely to successfully claim these resources (Lükemann/Abendroth 2024) and that this is mainly due to the gender-typing of CVT programmes, as women are less likely to experience career progression due to the type of training (Evertsson 2004). We use German longitudinal data from the adult cohort of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS Network 2022) to estimate fixed effects regression models. Our analyses address the question of whether men and women receive different financial returns to participation, differentiated by the varying forms and contents of non-formal CVT (e.g. on-the-job vs. off-the-job). The results can shed light on whether unequal returns to CVT reproduce the gender pay gap in Germany, and under what conditions CVT can be a countermeasure against the gender pay gap.