In all those countries, except South Africa, women in the 1990s were 40 to 50% less likely than men to be enrolled in tertiary education. To the extent that higher educational attainments take time to translate into higher labour market participation, we might expect the labour market integration of women to accelerate in these countries in the coming years. However, gender-biased social norms regarding the role of women in society and in the labour market constitute a major obstacle to progress and can be very persistent (see Box 4.1 for an analysis based on the World Values Survey). As social norms of this kind tend to be acquired at a young age, policy action should intervene early in people’s lives.