Gender, Employment and Higher Education Theme: Trends in Employment Characteristics of Arts Graduates by Gender

Abstract

At present, female enrollment for higher education is steadily increasing and contemporary it is about 80% for Arts discipline. An analogy to this, female labour force participation is also grown enormously. There may be a disparity in the occupations sort out by female compared to their male counterparts. The objective of this study is to identify the variations in pursuing employment and the employment characteristics namely sector of employment, monthly salary and type of job by gender. A mail survey was conducted in the year 2016 on a random sample of Arts graduates from all Sri Lankan state universities who had graduated in 2012 to identify the changes in their employment over time. Employment status and employment characteristics at each month after graduation were determined using the effective date of the degree and the employment history records of these graduates. Initially, the percent employed among male graduates was higher compared to females until three months after graduation, and then the percent employed among females increased drastically. Compared to males females are in favour of getting a permanent job, better occupation positions and a better salary. Furthermore, the majority were employed as development officers in public sector followed by teaching irrespective of gender.