Mapping Gender and Social Inequalities: Young Women and Men in European Countries

The paper discusses results from an ongoing research project on Gender (in)equalities over the life course, analyzing data about young women and men (15 to 29 years) in different European countries and welfare regimes. The present analysis aims to map gender and social inequalities, across European countries and within countries, examining several indicators. A longitudinal study of young Portuguese women and men, using quantitative but also qualitative methods, will also be presented.

The analysis highlights the obstacles that young women and men across Europe face in their transition to adulthood and autonomous life, and which accentuated after the economic crisis: unemployment, precarious jobs, low salaries, gender inequalities in the labor market.

Intersecting class, age and gender in our analysis, we further discuss educational and social mobility identifying different class and gender trajectories. Values and how they change over generations, in different European countries, is also a topic that will be addressed.

Through a cluster analysis we were able to identify three groups of countries and of young women and men. These comparisons led us to interesting conclusions. For instance, why do Portuguese young women look closer to eastern women in a considerable number of indicators, while Portuguese men, are closer to the other southern countries?

Why are young women, more than young men, leaving sooner their parents’ home and leaving on their own, in all European countries?

And how to combine class and gender when trying to explain the persistent educational gap between young men and women?

To answer these questions we mobilize a theoretical background that combines gender, welfare state and workcare regimes, material conditions of existence, but also cultural and historical trends of change in different countries, social classes, different type of masculinities and femininities.