Gender Roles and Socioeconomic Disparities in Early School Leaving: Evidence From EU-SILC Microdata

Early school leaving presents significant disparities, closely tied to observable characteristics such as gender and socioeconomic status (SES). This study examines the complex interplay between these factors using European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions microdata from 28 EU countries, covering the period from 2011 to 2019. Through logistic regression analyses, we uncover a nonlinear relationship between gender and SES, revealing that the gender gap in early school leaving diminishes as SES increases. Notably, our findings indicate that males from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are disproportionately at risk of dropping out of school. We show that this phenomenon can be partly explained by deeply rooted gender norms, which are further shaped by national attitudes toward gender roles.