Highly educated women still lag behind men

Thirty-something Dutch females tend to be more highly educated than males in their thirties. Even so, they are more likely to have part-time jobs and continue to earn less than men.

Almost half of young Dutch thirty-something females (46 percent) has a degree issued by a university or university of applied sciences, as indicated by figures released by Statistics Netherlands on International Women’s Day. Among males in their thirties, 41 percent are graduates from a university or university of applied sciences.

The entire Dutch population is getting increasingly well educated, but the number of women with a degree is growing faster than the number of men. This is not just because women are more likely to embark on a degree now than they were, say, ten years ago. They also perform better: female students are less likely to drop out and tend to get their degrees faster than men.

male studies and female studies

Even so, some studies continue to be the domain of men. Technological subjects, for instance, traditionally attract more male than female students, as do natural sciences and information technology. Veterinary medicine, on the other hand, used to attract more male students in 1990, but has become a study attracting mostly female students, according to figures released by Statistics Netherlands. The same is true for business economics and social sciences, both of which used to be male studies, but now mainly attract female students. Teacher training continues to be the most highly feminised study. It already was in 1990, but the number of men taking teacher training has decreased even more in the last 25 years.

Little Dutch women in high-ranking positions

However, even though women tend to be more successful students than men, they continue to be more likely to have part-time jobs, earn less and experience more stress, as stated in a report published today by SCP. In addition, the Netherlands has fewer women in high-ranking positions than other European countries.

Today, Jet Bussemaker, the Minister of Emancipation, called on men and women alike to do something about this. Women could stand to be a little less modest, she told Radio 1 News this morning. “Women have a tendency to wait for other people to ask them to do things. There’s no need for that sort of thing. I’d like to tell all women: trust you own talents.”