No Stalled Revolution: The Closing Gender Gap in Early Careers in Europe and the United States

Abstract

Women have surpassed men in higher education, yet their labor market progress relative to men is widely seen as stalled. We address this apparent contradiction by adopting a cohort perspective—since gender convergence is driven by cohort replacement rather than period effects—and focusing on early careers (ages 25–34), before parenthood widens the gender gap. Drawing on large-scale national data spanning several decades, we analyze single-year birth cohorts from 1960 to 1998 in France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States across multiple labor market outcomes. Our results show that gender gaps in employment, working hours, and occupational attainment have narrowed substantially in all countries studied. Most importantly, young women have made up considerable ground in total labor income: the gender gap has more than halved between the 1965 and 1995 birth cohorts. Although young women still lag behind young men, particularly mothers, our findings show steady convergence and challenge the narrative of stalled progress.