Although we mostly presented general social survey data today, we do have some statistics from the 2016 census. Looking at the census data was really interesting, because they highlight some differences, but not extreme disadvantages for women. Women actually are more likely to have a university degree at the bachelor's level or higher than men: 25% of women in 2016 versus 22% of men, so it's fairly close, but not a big difference.
What was interesting, though, is we took a look at people who are university educated and whether or not they were likely to report an occupation in 2016. It seems that while women are more likely than men to be working under the age of 25 after they've obtained their university degree, after the age of 35 women's employment goes down. This would lend itself to saying they're likely to be more involved in child rearing and family-related responsibilities.
I also looked at some of the data on education related to participation, and legislative occupations and senior government roles. If you look at fields of study like political science and law, the number of women with university degrees in those fields is fairly similar, but where there's a little bit of a difference is with respect to business management and public administration degrees in those fields. For example, in 2016 there was a difference of four percentage points of the share of women going into business. There was a four percentage points difference from what it was for men going into business, and this is actually a little more pronounced for the 15- to 24-year-olds. If we look overall at all the people working in senior government positions or legislative positions, business is the main field of study reported, followed by the social and behavioural sciences. There could be something there related to business as a field of study.