PERSISTENT GAPS: GLOBAL AND NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER AND HIGHER EDUCATION
Abstract
To understand what is happening in higher education, it’s essential to look earlier in the education pipeline. As seen in this graph [Figure 1], the y-axis indicates the gender parity index, with 1 indicating gender parity or equality for men and women. This figure shows that at the beginning of the period (in 1990), enrollment rates favored men for all three levels of education, but this has changed considerably over time. As indicated by the green line with circles, primary education reached gender parity in 2013. For secondary education (as indicated by the blue line with squares), trends were similar as of the late 1990s, and there is now near gender equality. However, the slope for tertiary education (indicated by the top line) has always been much steeper. Gender parity was reached sooner – by around the year 2000 – and has continued to climb since then such that women outnumber men in tertiary education in many countries worldwide.
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