As to the main reasons behind MSc, acquiring more knowledge,
progressing in studying, improving one’s job performance and being able
to undergo an academic career seem to be the most important arguments
imposing on women’ decision. The professional occupation held in a first
moment appears to deeply explain as well the reasons why women intend
to undergo a MSc. especially for nurses and university teachers. Quite
meaningfully, actually, those first labour market occupations were mostly
obtained throughout a national or public contest in the case of women:
some 48% of them got their first occupation thereby against some 23% for
men in alike situations: the latter would perhaps have benefited from a
more rich “social capital”...
Decision to take a MSc. also seems to be quite contingent on time
women spend in the first employment: tenure is meaningfully lower for
women and getting a MSc. appears to work also as a major or even the
unique way to achieve job stability, eventually in line with upward
mobility.
Contingency Analysis provided particularly robust results for
associations with the variable “time to complete MSc”. Actually, this time
interval appears to be quite gender influenced for the population under
analysis, women being some 12% more frequent than men in taking
three or more years to complete MSc. Seeking for some possible reasons
behind the women’ larger time spells, we notice two especially contingent
features: “husband’s/wife’s school level” and “husband’s/wife’s
professional occupation”, with Qui-square significance levels equal to
0,040 and 0,068. Family situation (e.g. children age and number) was the
next variable but we did not consider its influence because its significance
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