Higher education systems globally have seen major increases in women’s participation and the overall trend in OECD countries has been a transition from the traditional male majority in enrolments to a substantial female majority. Prompted by a recent reversal of this trend, this paper explores gender differences in participation in higher education in 27 OECD countries between 1971 and 2015. While increased participation by women was thought to be part of the solution to persistent gender inequalities we argue that this is not an inevitable outcome. Our argument is based on an analysis of changes in the gender composition of the student population, using available secondary data. We explore how changing gender differentials are linked to the concurrent massification of HE, changing distribution of enrolments by field of study, changes in sex segregation by field, features of national education systems and wider social structural differences related to gender. Our analysis examines the complex interaction between discipline-specific levels of sex segregation and overall levels of gender parity. We argue that that sex segregation needs to be considered alongside women’s long-standing higher participation rates to understand why the latter has not triggered a transformation in the gendered division of labour.

中文翻译：

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高等教育入学中的性别平等：趋势和悖论

全球高等教育系统的女性参与率大幅增加，经合组织国家的总体趋势是从传统的男性入学人数过渡到女性占多数。受近期这一趋势逆转的推动，本文探讨了 1971 年至 2015 年间 27 个经合组织国家在高等教育参与方面的性别差异。 虽然增加女性参与被认为是解决持续存在的性别不平等问题的一部分，但我们认为这是不是必然的结果。我们的论点是基于对学生人口性别构成变化的分析，使用可用的二手数据。我们探讨了不断变化的性别差异如何与高等教育的同时大众化、不同研究领域的招生分布变化、不同领域的性别隔离变化、国家教育系统的特点以及与性别相关的更广泛的社会结构差异。我们的分析考察了特定学科的性别隔离水平与总体性别均等水平之间的复杂相互作用。我们认为，需要将性别隔离与女性长期以来的较高参与率一起考虑，以了解为什么后者没有引发性别分工的转变。