“For both boys and girls, above-average academic performance in STEM fields at school is important for choosing them in higher education,” says Pia Pinger from the EPoS Economic Research Centre. “Yet, despite showing equal proficiency in STEM subjects and better overall academic performance, young women need a performance indicator relative to other subjects that is four times higher than for men before considering a STEM major. This difference is surprisingly large.”
Female STEM students expect on-the-job discrimination
As a result, women in Germany are still far less likely than men to enter well-paid STEM professions. An additional hurdle when choosing a course of study has nothing to do with their performance. Female STEM students fear gender-specific discrimination later in their careers much more frequently than in other disciplines. “Structural and cultural barriers prevent many qualified women from choosing to study STEM subjects,” says Pinger. “This is worrying because there is an acute shortage of professionals in this field, even though STEM graduates are often well paid and have good career prospects.”
Despite these prospects, women are still under-represented in math-intensive subjects, according to the OECD. In Germany, only 22 percent of all STEM university graduates are women. In OECD countries as a whole, the figure amounts to 32 percent. According to the researchers, this may be due to traditional role models and an early gender-specific choice of subjects in the German school system. In contrast to Scandinavian and Eastern European countries, there is also a lack of targeted support and encouragement for girls in STEM subjects, which translates into lower enrollment rates and fewer professionals, the researchers say.
Breaking down gender barriers in STEM fields
“The barriers for women in STEM are structural and cultural and require tailor-made responses,” says Pinger. “For example, specific programmes to combat discrimination in STEM fields would be helpful. The aim should be to improve working conditions for women. In this way, the expectations of young female high school graduates could change over time, and more women could pursue STEM careers in the future.”