Underrepresentation of women in undergraduate economics degrees in Europe: a comparison with STEM and business degrees

In the past decade, the proportion and academic performance of women who pursue university degrees have increased relative to men in a range of developing countries. Despite this, the percentage of undergraduate economics degrees awarded to women remains low and the gender gap in the USA worsens as women economists progress in their professional careers. European countries seem to have less of a ‘leaky pipeline’. This chapter describes the cross-country underrepresentation of women graduating in economics degrees in Europe relative to country-specific women/men university graduation rates. We also compare the underrepresentation of women in economics to its closest alternative, Business, as well as its gender-underrepresented counterpart, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Finally, we lean on recent evidence to suggest policies to increase the relative share of women pursuing undergraduate economics degrees in Europe with a strong focus on policies aimed at high schools. Overall, we find that the underrepresentation of women in economics graduates has worsened in Europe. In contrast, while gender representation in STEM is worse than in Economics, it has experienced a mild increase over the period of study, while Business has a slight overrepresentation of women.