On the regional labor market determinants of female university enrolment in Europe

We empirically investigate how young women’s decisions of investing in post-secondary education is affected by labor market outcomes of older women living in the same region. We use EU-SILC data on educational decisions of women who completed secondary schooling and we construct indicators of the regional labor market. Exploiting regional and time variability, we find that the share of working women with young children, of women with managerial positions and self-employed positively affect the probability to enrol. We do not find significant effects of these variables for men.