WP 92 - An overview of women's work and employment in Azerbaijan

An overview of women’s work and employment in Azerbaijan

humanities and social sciences (58%), and men for geology (13% women), engineering and electronics (11%
women), and economics and management (24% women). In 2006-07, over three in four female students
(76%) had chosen education, public health, natural sciences and humanities and social sciences, against three
in ten (31%) male students (SSC via website AGIC). According to figures as of 2000, the urban — rural and
income disparities were by far largest in tertiary education. The share of urban youngsters 17-22 of age fol-
lowing higher education, this was over four times of rural youngsters, and the shares for youngsters from
the richest 12 times that of the poorest 20% families (UNESCO 2010). Anecdotic evidence indicates that
these proportions have hardly changed (cf. Cosby et al 2007).

2.7.3. Female skill levels

Table 9 presents the division of the economically active population of Azerbaijan by gender and educa-
tional attainment, based on official estimates as of 2008 and following the ISCED division. A majority of
the labour force has their highest level of education completed at ISCED level 3. Gender differences are
rather small. Women are less represented at the highest level (ISCED 5-6), with women to men parity 78%,
but they are more represented at the second highest level (ISCED 4), bringing women to men parity here to
123%. If these figures are correct, we cannot but conclude that for both genders, but especially for women,
a serious underutilization of skills is at hand. The fact that in the same year nearly half of the female jobs is
classified as ”elementary occupations” is difficult to reconcile with the finding that less than 5% of the fe-
male labour force has an education completed below ISCED level 3. If we attach a 1 to 5 ranking to the five
levels, starting with 1 for ISCED X-1, the outcomes clarify that the gender gap in education of the labour
force is quite small: the average female rating is 3.51, against a male average of 3.59.

Table 9. Economically active population (incl. unemployed) by highest level of education completed and
by gender, Azerbaijan, 2008

all              male            female

Source: ILO Laborsta, Table 1B

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