Like many post-industrial, knowledge-based societies and economies, Switzerland has experienced a reversal of the gender gap with respect to educational attainment: Within less than two decades, the share of young women attaining a tertiary level degree has exceeded that of young men - by 10% points in the Swiss case. However, this development is far from translating into women's situation in the labor market. They are markedly underrepresented in managerial positions, overrepresented in low-paying jobs, and experience persistent "unexplained" wage gaps. Both the Swiss education system and the labor market remain deeply affected by gender segregation. As a country with a VET-dominated education system, Switzerland is characterized by a strong education-occupation linkage, which tends to reinforce gender segregation. Gendered labor market trajectories are further accentuated by a social, legislative, fiscal, and economic context hampering reconciliation of family and work, which tends to marginalize or exclude women with children from the labor market. The detailed, richly contextualized trajectory data of the Swiss school leavers' panel survey TREE (Transitions from Education to Employment) allow us to observe and analyze the progressive gendering of life courses, as it were, "in its making." The present contribution provides a synopsis of salient findings drawing on TREE data across the various stages of educational, labor market, and family formation pathways after young people in Switzerland leave compulsory schooling at the age of 15-16. The findings particularly contribute to disentangling the complex, yet powerful mechanisms at work during the transition to post-compulsory education and to the labor market. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024. All rights reserved.
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