A magneto-optical recording medium with a reproducing layer that exhibits in-plane magnetization at room temperature and that comes to exhibit perpendicular magnetization as temperature rises. The second shielding layer is used to block the magnetization of record bits other than a record bit to be reproduced from being copied on a signal reproducing area in the reproducing layer. Consequently, even in the case of high-density record bits in the recording layer, only the magnetization of the record bit to be reproduced is copied on the reproducing layer. Therefore, the application of the magneto-optical recording medium makes it possible to produce superior reproducing signals even in the case where the records bits with high density are formed on the recording layer.