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The authors aim to explore the link between the gender composition of occupations and women's access to managerial positions in four societal contexts.

Using EU-LFS data for 2015, the authors measure the relative gender equality performance of France, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK regarding women's access to managerial positions, defined as levels 1 and 2 of the 2008 ISCO classification coupled with the exercise of managerial responsibilities.

While gender-mixed working environments offer the largest number of managerial positions, they are also where women are least likely to reach such a position. Overall, except in Switzerland, women fare best in male-dominated occupations. Women do not appear to fare worse than men in female-dominated occupations, except in France.

The findings question the relevance of policies aimed simply at reducing occupational gender segregation without providing safeguards against the deleterious effects that gender mixing may have on women's career advancement.

The disparities between countries found here show that individual career advancement towards a managerial position may be driven by the social policies, gender ideology and institutions of the societal context. Examining how the societal dimensions involved in the poor performance of women in France and Switzerland are likely to differ sheds light on mechanisms behind the gender gap in management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the patterns and determinants of the division of household tasks within couples in countries under different welfare-state regimes.

The paper investigates data on “urban middle- and upper-class” couples living in New York, Paris or Tokyo area, from a 2007 international comparative time-budget survey carried out at the initiative of the Rengo-Soken Research Institute. Each partner was interviewed separately, offering a unique statistical source for analysing the organisation of domestic time.

The results shed light on the degree of proximity among the three populations in their housework-sharing arrangements. Greater parity in partners’ housework time is found for the New York couples, regardless of their occupational activity. In Paris and especially in Tokyo, other demands on the partners’ time and the contribution each makes to the household income both impact the actual division of household labour.

The partners’ gender ideology was not elicited, and inclusion of lower-class couples could change certain results. However, the findings attest to the strong role that welfare-state regime plays in shaping housework time allocation.

Unlike other international comparisons, the survey used enables us to ensure strong comparability of measures. The welfare-state regime and family model frameworks clearly highlight the interplay between individual determinants and the institutional context.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether the gender wage gap at the beginning of the working life in France varies with the gender composition of occupations (male-dominated, female-dominated or mixed) and its main determinant (educational pre-sorting or labour market sorting).

The first stage of the methodology is to decompose segregation indexes at occupation level into the two components of determination noted above. The occupations are then divided into five groups on the basis of their gender composition and the weight of the educational segregation. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions are then applied to each group.

Among 54 strongly gendered occupations, the segregation in 26 stems mainly from educational pre-sorting. This context is favourable to reduction of the gender wage gap. However, a modest wage differential is not proof of convergence towards equity, as it may conceal the existence of a significant discrimination component, as in male occupations.

The results relate to a cohort of French youth. The earnings-equalizing impact of education-based occupational segregation should be tested in other national contexts.

Public authorities should put in place incentives to encourage women's participation in a greater range of education and training courses and to improve the matching between education and the skill content of jobs.

The originality lies in the suggestion that a strong connection between education and skill requirements helps to narrow the occupational gender wage gap.

The paper seeks to separate the signalling effect of education on first entry into the labour market and the long‐term influence of its human capital component on earnings. It is claimed that large firms attach more importance than small ones to the signalling component of education. Thus it is assumed, first, that highly educated young people are more likely to be recruited by a large company. Second, size of firm at first job is likely to some extent to be predictive of earnings patterns and career opportunities. Lastly, it is assumed that returns to professional experience and education are likely to be more subject to erosion in large firms than in small ones once the influence of education on the first appointment has been taken into account. In order to test these hypotheses, a multinomial Logit selection model is estimated. The findings are widely consistent with the hypotheses and support the idea that the signalling impact of education is stronger in large firms than in small ones, which might explain wage inequality among workers endowed with the same amount of education.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the conceptual approaches to competence and practice in competence management in France.

Extensive literature review, discussion with academic experts in the French competence network of AGRH and interviews concerning developments following the 2003 national agreement with officials of the major trade unions and employers' associations.

The conceptual approach to competence is formally comprehensive and incorporates key dimensions of the other dominant competence models. Extensive academic debate on competence does not appear to be mirrored in practice within establishments. Nevertheless, competence management has been given a major stimulus by recent legislation designed to promote lifelong learning and competence is at the centre of the reform of the training and qualifications systems.

It is still too early to assess the extent of adoption of competence management overall in the economy but there is increasing evidence that the techniques are becoming diffused throughout the economy from leading edge cases, often larger enterprises, to smaller firms and establishments.

This paper provides valuable information for practitioners engaging with organisations in France.

This paper gives a summary of the state of the art of competence management in France.