A campaign poster uses an image of the 1966 World Cup to challenge stereotypes

The Equal Opportunities Commission is running a What's Stopping You campaign, which is encouraging young people to overcome male and female stereotypes.

This is supported by the Education Secretary Estelle Morris who says that "horizons need not be limited by narrow expectations or fixed stereotypical ideas".

The commission's survey of subject preference illustrates that many vocational subjects have retained a clear gender bias.

For intermediate level GNVQs in information technology, 81% of candidates are boys. In engineering the figure is even higher, at 98%.

In the "caring" subjects the position is reversed, with girls representing 92% of the pupils taking social and health care GNVQs.

At GCSE, 94% of students taking home economics are female and at A-level physics, 78% of candidates are male.

Low income

The chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Julie Mellor, said that such gender imbalances contributed to more women ending up in low-income employment.

"Working women are still concentrated in a narrow range of occupations - all at the lower paid end of the labour market.

"We won't get true equality in the workplace unless measures are taken at school to encourage young people to pick from all the options available."