Gender differences in higher education in Germany: are women under- or overrepresented at university, and why?

ABSTRACT We study gender differences in the selection of traditional universities versus universities of applied sciences in Germany. Do women, due to life and job goals, less often enrol than men in traditional universities and more often enrol at the more practice- and profession-oriented universities of applied sciences? Or are women overrepresented at traditional universities due to prior educational choices and outcomes such as higher school grades and more frequent choice of non-technical fields of study? Our analyses on a national sample of 1st-year students report a 14-percentage point higher likelihood of women than men to enter traditional universities. This gender gap can almost entirely be attributed to educational factors, specifically women’s less frequent choice of engineering majors, and hardly by job goal preferences. That, net of these factors, no gender difference exists indicates that women in Germany do not aim lower or higher than men as to the institution choice.