Abstract
In recent years, many studies have referred to the interdependence between cognitive (hard-skills) and students’ academic performance. However, despite their relevance, soft-skills have not received the same treatment and have not been analysed as extensively, particularly from a gender perspective. Therefore, and bearing in mind that analysing from a gender perspective is essential to reduce occupational segregation and soft-skills can enhance young people’s personal and academic development, throughout this paper we have analysed the gender gap in soft-skills with a sample of 15–16 years old students from the Spanish region of Andalusia. To do so, we have used a recent innovation of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique. Our results show not only that the gender gap in soft-skills is correlated with gender stereotypes, but also that grade retention or being an immigrant show a greater degree of association with boys’ soft-skills than girls’, while mothers’ educational level is more correlated with the soft-skills of girls.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been partly supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under Research Project PID2020-119471RB-I00; the Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa de la Junta de Andalucía under PAIDI group SEJ-645 and the FEDER funding under Research Project PY20-00228. We also acknowledge the scholarship FPU20/01509 of the Ministerio de Universidades and the training received from the Programa de Doctorado en Economía y Empresa of the Universidad de Malaga.
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Ladrón de Guevara Rodríguez, M., Marcenaro-Gutierrez, O.D. & Lopez-Agudo, L.A. On the Gender Gap of Soft-Skills: the Spanish Case. Child Ind Res 16, 167–197 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-022-09966-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-022-09966-w