Gender gap persists among top-performing students
Although women make up a majority of top-performing students in many countries, they remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Women account for a large share of top-performing students, yet are less likely than men to choose STEM programmes. Photo: Jens Olof Lasthein.
Women among the top 10 percent of students are substantially less likely than men to rank a STEM programme as their first choice. The pattern appears consistently across all admission systems included in the study, including Sweden.
In the SOFI Working Paper The Global Gender Gap in STEM Applications: Pipeline vs. Choice, José Montalbán and co-authors analyse university applications from ten centralized admission systems across five continents.
The findings suggest that a stronger academic pipeline for women alone is not enough to reduce gender disparities in STEM. The researchers argue that educational choices play an important role in understanding why the gender gap persists.
Read SOFI Working Paper No. 12/2026:
The Global Gender Gap in STEM Applications: Pipeline vs. Choice
Explore the data: Gender Gap Insights
Last updated: 2026-11-09
Source: Swedish Institute for Social Research