Gender and professional career plans of high school students in comparative perspective

In this article, we investigate whether adolescent girls are more determined to enter professional careers compared to boys across countries. To this end, we analyse the data from the 2006 survey of OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). First, we establish whether girls are more ambitious than boys net of their academic ability and home and school environments. Second, we examine whether the attraction to professional occupations can be explained by gender-typed choices, that is, girls' preference for nursing and teaching versus boys' determination to enter trades. Third, we examine how school characteristics as well as the macrosocial contexts, that is, labour market opportunities open to women, may help girls set higher achievement goals. We conclude by discussing the implications of these gender differences, with a special focus on the dilemma they may pose for policy-makers.