Gender segregation in vocational education and occupations in the context of digitalisation

Austria is one of the countries with persistently high gender segregation in combination with a high matching of training and occupations. In this context, we analyse how educational and occupational segregation interact in the male-dominated fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and in the female-dominated areas of education, health and welfare (EHW). We discuss how atypical education can reduce gender segregation in the labour market and whether automation risks affect women and men in STEM and EHW differently. Firstly, our analysis shows that educational segregation is heavily transmitted to the occupational system in this fields. Secondly, the results point to the potential of gender-atypical fields for reducing segregation but also to their limitations especially since we find a double mismatch for women in STEM. Based on findings from digitalisation and automation research, we find that women are overrepresented in STEM jobs focussing on manual routine tasks which are more likely to be automated than the jobs primarily performed by men. While EHW is less prone to automation in general, the distribution of tasks between men and women indicates vertical segregation despite EHW being a female-dominated sector.