Education-based occupational segregation and the gender wage gap: evidence from France Thomas Couppie ´ School to work transition and careers, The French Centre for Research on Education, Training and Employment (Ce ´req), Marseille, France Arnaud Dupray School to work transition and careers, The French Centre for Research on Education, Training and Employment (Ce ´req) and Institute of Labour Economics and Industrial Sociology (Lest/CNRS), Marseille and Aix en Provence, France, and Ste ´phanie Moullet Aix-Marseille University and Institute of Labour Economics and Industrial Sociology (Lest/CNRS), Aix en Provence, France Abstract Purpose – 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). Design/methodology/approach – 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. Findings – 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. Research limitations/implications – 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. Social implications – 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. Originality/value – The originality lies in the suggestion that a strong connection between education and skill requirements helps to narrow the occupational gender wage gap. Keywords Gender, France, Youth, Sexual discrimination, Pay differentials, Occupational segregation, Educational pre-sorting Paper type Research paper The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7720.htm Received 26 September 2012 Revised 27 September 2013 Accepted 30 September 2013 International Journal of Manpower Vol. 35 No. 3, 2014 pp. 368-391 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0143-7720 DOI 10.1108/IJM-09-2012-0143 Authors owe special thanks to Rosemary Batt, Catherine Marry, Dominique Meurs, Ste ´phane Moulin and Jose ´ Rose for very helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper. They are also indebted to seminar participants at the 14th Workshop of the European Research Network on Transition in Youth for their comments on an earlier draft and acknowledge support from the French National Research Agency (ANR) for the research programme DRIS (Discriminations Ressenties et Ine ´galite ´s Sociales) under the grant ANR-06-BLAN-04/5-02. The authors are also indebted to the editor and three anonymous referees for very helpful remarks and suggestions on a previous draft. 368 IJM 35,3