Closing the gender gap? Life Competences and social environment

This paper investigates whether adult proficiency formation is affected by social environments. Using the Italian sample of the ALL survey conducted in 2003, which includes cohorts born between 1938 and 1988, we exploit temporal and regional variations in indicators of women empowerment to assess whether more progressive environments favour the reduction dynamics of the gender gap. Results suggest that environmental factors matter but they do not have a gender differential effect. Adult proficiency is higher for individuals grown in more progressive societies in terms of female labour market participation, women political empowerment, female sexual emancipation and laity.