Women Earn More Doctoral Degrees Than Men

Over the past several decades, women have been making gradual gains in the world of higher education, but, until last year, men continued to dominate doctorate degrees. Now, according to current data released by the Council of Graduate Schools, more women obtained doctoral degrees than men last year.
According to the analysis of graduate enrollments and degrees, the majority for women in doctoral programs is only slight, a mere 50.4 percent. However, the switch proves to be steadily rising and momentous. Just ten years ago, women made up only 44 percent of doctoral degrees.
Nathan Bell, with the Council of Graduate Schools, said that the increased female share of doctoral degrees was “a natural progression of what we have been seeing” in all levels of college degrees. Female enrollments have engulfed male enrollments in associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s programs. And he said this recently released data makes sense given that “the pipeline is increasingly female.”
In addition, Bell said he thinks that the main reason that women didn’t claim the majority of doctoral graduates sooner is that a huge portion of degrees are rendered in fields like engineering that remain underhandedly male, just like in the undergraduate level.
On the other hand, women have recently gained majorities beyond arts and humanities. Some of these include health sciences, biological sciences and other fields that weren’t typically populated by women.
The increased rate in doctoral degrees given to women outpaces those to men in all disciplines. Comprehensively, women achieved more doctoral degrees than men in a single year. Women made a gain of 6.1 percent while men made a gain of only 1 percent.
Via Inside Higher Ed
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