Gender gaps in career opportunities: a look at graduates in the field of business and economics in Uruguay

Unlike developed countries, male and female university graduates in Uruguay are equally sorted into the fields of accountancy, business and economics. In turn, as in those regions, these people begin their labor market tracks with similar academic characteristics and labor positions. But, does this imply they develop convergent career paths? Using data on academic and labor market performance of cohorts graduated in 2012, we apply ordered probit models to analyze gender differences in job positions at graduation and subsequent years. We find that gender does not account for differences either in university marks or in time to degree or job positions at graduation and 4 years later. However, it emerges as a strong predictor of job positions 7 years afterwards. At that stage, the chances of reaching the upper ranked jobs is 10 percentage points higher for men than for women while female probabilities of achieving higher positions are even lower when children are present. Besides, soon after degree, women have a significantly lower probability than men of full-time working and show a greater appreciation of job stability and free time.