
{"id":178290,"date":"2025-08-04T09:42:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T07:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=178290"},"modified":"2025-08-04T10:08:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T08:08:59","slug":"why-some-degrees-attract-only-women-and-others-only-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/why-some-degrees-attract-only-women-and-others-only-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Why some degrees only attract women \u2014 and others only men"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mads Outzen Foghsgaard was excited to start on the education studies programme in the summer of 2024. He had applied for admission via the alternative quota 2 admissions process, and this had given him the opportunity to examine in detail what the degree programme was actually about.<\/p>\n<p>It sounded \u00bbsuper exciting\u00ab and just right for him, he says, having previously wavered a bit between sociology, anthropology, and education studies. It definitely had to be something involving people and culture.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">Admissions 2025<\/p>\n<p>6,822 new bachelor\u2019s students have been offered a place at the University of Copenhagen in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>62 per cent of those admitted are women, and 38 per cent are men.<\/p>\n<p>The average age is 23.<\/p>\n<p>UCPH admits students across a total of 75 bachelor\u2019s programmes.<\/p>\n<p>78.8 per cent of admitted students got into their first-choice programme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Mads Outzen Foghsgaard had read that there was a large majority of women in the programme, and he had prepared himself for not having many male fellow students. But that was okay.<\/p>\n<p>He had just returned from a stay in a Danish folk high school, where the gender distribution had also been skewed, and that hadn\u2019t been a problem \u2014 so it didn\u2019t scare him.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbMy dad and I had sat down and done a bit of math to figure out how many boys and girls would be in the programme based on the percentage numbers we had found online. We concluded that there would probably be a small handful of guys,\u00ab he says, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbBut when I showed up on the first day of class, I found out that there were only three guys in a group of about 50. It was a bit overwhelming to realise that we were so few,\u00ab laughs Mads Outzen Foghsgaard, who is now in his second semester with one other male fellow student \u2014 the third has dropped out.<\/p>\n<h3>Minority gender drops out<\/h3>\n<p>Education is that degree programme at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) with the greatest gender imbalance. In 2024, 95 per cent of admitted students were women. Men made up only five per cent.<\/p>\n<p>But Mads Outzen Foghsgaard is no anomaly. When you zoom out and look at the university as a whole, the trend is clear: Women are taking up more space, and men less.<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, 61 per cent of all new students at UCPH were women, and 39 per cent were men \u2014 a distribution that has remained fairly stable over the past five to ten years, according to figures obtained by the University Post from the University of Copenhagen&#8217;s education and students unit.<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 1 --><br \/>\nThere are a few places at UCPH however, where the men dominate. This can be seen especially at the Faculty of Science, particularly on the degree programmes Machine Learning and Data Science (where in 2024, 13 per cent of those admitted were women) and on Computer Science (14 per cent women).<\/p>\n<p>Studies over the years have pointed to a range of challenges associated with gender-imbalanced degree programmes.<\/p>\n<p>The think tank DEA, for example, recently concluded that the risk of drop out is higher if you are a gender minority on a higher education programme with a skewed gender distribution (defined in the study as less than 25 per cent of one gender among the students).<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe looked into what it means for an individual student to be in a programme where they are clearly in the minority. And it seems that the more clearly you are a minority, the greater the chance you will regret your choice of study and drop out,\u00ab says Kristian Thor Jakobsen, chief economist and deputy director at DEA.<\/p>\n<p>The analysis does not offer any clear-cut answers as to why this is the case, but one suggestion might be that students simply lack peers they can relate to, according to the deputy director.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbStudents tell us that communities are important, so if we want to explain the correlation with dropout rates, it could suggest that they miss communities that in some way are shaped by gender,\u00ab says Kristian Thor Jakobsen.<\/p>\n<h3>One-sided discussions<\/h3>\n<p>For education student Mads Outzen Foghsgaard it is a new experience to be in a community where there are so few men, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI\u2019ve mostly been used to being in all-male groups, so this is quite new for me. But I can definitely feel that the other guy and I have naturally sought each other out \u2014 and we\u2019ve become quite close, so that\u2019s a positive,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>If he had been the only man on the programme, continuing the next two years would probably have been tough, he says. Because even though the study environment is open and inclusive, not all conversations are ones that Mads Outzen Foghsgaard and his fellow male student can naturally take part in, he says:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s a bit hard to explain, but sometimes it does happen that people talk over our heads a bit, or that things come up that we can\u2019t really take part in,\u00ab he says, quickly adding that he has made good friends on the programme and is happy to be there.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbBut sometimes the discussions do get a bit one-sided. For example, we\u2019ve had several conversations about the difficult aspects of being a female educator, and I think the difficult aspects of being a male educator have been left out,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>It both frustrates and puzzles him that more men aren\u2019t applying for education studies, because if you ask him, the subject has the potential to interest everyone regardless of gender.<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 2 --><br \/>\n\u00bbI know that education studies as a university subject is dominated by women, but I don\u2019t think there is anything academic that justifies the idea that the programme should be more for women than for men.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h3>Education is not a care profession<\/h3>\n<p>At UCPH, there are major differences in how the individual programmes work with study environment, recruitment and retention in relation to gender. And even though Education is the most gender-imbalanced programme at UCPH, it is not something that is given particular attention by university management, according to Gerd Christensen, who is head of the Education programme.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe actually don\u2019t see it as a problem. In all of our student well-being surveys, it appears that both male and female students are thriving, and we haven\u2019t experienced it as being an issue in the classroom either,\u00ab she says, adding that there are no special initiatives for either recruiting or retaining male students.<\/p>\n<p>Management does however pay attention to ensuring that there are both male and female lecturers, so that there are role models who can inspire different students.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/they-let-in-the-women-and-nothing-was-ever-the-same\/\"><em>They let in the women \u2014 and nothing was ever the same<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt would definitely be an advantage to have more male students, and I also can\u2019t explain why the gender distribution is so skewed,\u00ab she says, emphasising like Mads Outzen Foghsgaard that she does not consider Education to be in the same category as the traditional care professions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe programme deals with education in a broad sense \u2014 everything from early childhood to school, working life and prisons. I believe many people, regardless of gender, could find something within the field that they find interesting,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<h3>More non-males in computer science<\/h3>\n<p>Things look quite different at the Department of Computer Science (DIKU), which over the past ten years has actively worked to recruit more female students. This is according to Ken Friis Larsen, who is normally deputy head of department for teaching, but is currently acting head of DIKU, which oversees nearly 15 degree programmes \u2014 including both Machine Learning and Data Science, as well as Computer Science.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe gender imbalance in Computer Science \u2014 and to some extent in the technical and scientific STEM subjects more generally \u2014 is not a UCPH problem. It\u2019s not even a Danish problem. It\u2019s an international issue that is culturally conditioned and very hard to counter,\u00ab says Ken Friis Larsen, adding that the department has for many years actively worked to recruit and retain more women.<\/p>\n<p>This includes the Femtech initiative, which organises tech workshops aimed at female upper secondary students. And at open house events they highlight the diversity of topics that you can work with in the STEM fields.<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 3 --><br \/>\nOn the degree programmes, student groups are also organised according to a principle that ensures a certain number of gender minorities on each team. And when prospective students check out the different programmes on the UCPH website, they are met with images showing a \u00bbdiverse group of students\u00ab.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s extremely important that there are role models people can identify with. Statistically, we probably have more images of women on the website than are actually represented in the student populace. And that\u2019s not to deceive anyone, but to emphasise that computer scientists can look different,\u00ab says Ken Friis Larsen.<\/p>\n<p>But \u2014 he adds \u2014 at the department, they\u2019re not really keen on talking about gender imbalance in terms of \u2018men and women\u2019. They would rather work with representation in a broader sense.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe prefer to say that we have too few non-men on the programmes, and that\u2019s actually how we address the problem in practice,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>And their various initiatives appear to be working:<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 4 --><br \/>\n\u00bbWe\u2019re seeing that the balance is slowly beginning to shift. At one point, we had more students named [the Danish boys name. ed.] Rasmus in Computer Science than we had women. But now we\u2019re approaching 20 per cent women, and of course our goal is to exceed the magical 25 per cent,\u00ab he says, noting that being part of a gender minority is less overwhelming when that minority exceeds 25 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>He also emphasises that the gender imbalance at Computer Science for the 2024 cohort was particularly pronounced. In previous years, the intake of women has been around 20 per cent.<\/p>\n<h3>Men are going nowhere<\/h3>\n<p>While local UCPH initiatives are working to attract more women to STEM subjects, the Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk Erhverv) has a slightly different focus. The trend of men disappearing from longer duration higher education programmes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=177575&amp;preview=true\"><em>Young, brilliant, and tired of being underestimated<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A recent projection from the Ministry of Children and Education showed that in the future, there will be significantly fewer academics on the Danish labour market \u2014 and that a vanishingly small proportion of that academic workforce will be male.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, most expected that up to 30 per cent of a youth cohort would get a university degree. The current estimate has dropped to 24 per cent: 28 per cent women (down from 32 per cent) and just 19 per cent men (down from 27 per cent).<\/p>\n<p>These figures concern Mads Eriksen Storm, head of education and research policy at the Danish Chamber of Commerce:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe difference between men and women has become very large. And this means that we will see a similarly large gender imbalance in the academic labour market in the future,\u00ab he says.<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 5 --><br \/>\nThe imbalance is already clear in today\u2019s labour market, says Mads Eriksen Storm, especially in the healthcare sector:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThere has been a shift over the years. In the past, the classic image of a doctor was a man \u2014 in the future, it will increasingly be a woman. The same goes for law, which has also largely become a women-dominated field,\u00ab says Mads Eriksen Storm.<\/p>\n<p>Asked what the actual problem is with this trend, he says:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIf you assume that men and women are equally talented, then in the future we will see a waste of this talent, simply because we have failed to educate men to fulfil their potential.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>It comes as no surprise to Mads Eriksen Storm, that initiatives have been launched to attract and recruit more women to male-dominated fields \u2014 but not to the same extent the other way around.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt comes down to the fact that there have been many foundation grants for recruitment work in male-dominated fields. And a lot of evidence suggests that, in many places, this has been increasingly successful in attracting women. But the men \u2014 they\u2019re not budging,\u00ab says Mads Eriksen Storm.<\/p>\n<h3>The market adapts to women<\/h3>\n<p>Claus Holm is Head of Department at the Danish School of Education (DPU) at Aarhus University. Last year, he led an expert group under the Ministry of Children and Education that examined the role of gender in daycare, primary schools and upper secondary education.<\/p>\n<p>He says there is a clear trend across the entire education system: Girls outperform boys, and this is especially apparent in longer duration higher education programmes.<\/p>\n<p>The big question is: Why?<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThere are several theories, but no definitive answer,\u00ab begins Claus Holm.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the most interesting theory is that there is both an expectation effect and an ambition effect at play among women.<\/p>\n<p>The first refers to the way boys and girls are met with different expectations throughout the education system. Typically, boys tend to face limited expectations, while girls are encouraged to excel \u2014 and that has an impact on how they perform, explains Claus Holm.<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 6 --><br \/>\n\u00bbThe ambition effect, on the other hand, has to do with the fact that over the past 100 years, women have fought to make themselves visible \u2014 not least in the education system. Recent generations of women have seen their mothers and grandmothers achieve gender equality through education,\u00ab he says, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThis can help us understand why women today perform better than men in the education system.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Claus Holm also finds it interesting to consider what effect this will have on women\u2019s position, performance and pay in the labour market. He points out that many workplaces today place a strong emphasis on creating good conditions for parental leave and flexible work opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbLed by the Danish Chamber of Commerce, many companies have recognised that women are the most important human resource of the future in terms of education. That\u2019s why the business sector is particularly keen to ensure that women do not become less career-oriented, for example when they have a child,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<h3>Diverse environments<\/h3>\n<p>So what is the University of Copenhagen management\u2019s overall ambition when it comes to gender imbalance in the degree programmes? This was answered by the Dean of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and the UCPH strategic sponsor for diversity, Bente Stallknecht:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe want diversity across our degree programmes more generally. This is partly because it affects the study environment, and partly because it\u2019s important that we end up with a diverse labour market. For example, it\u2019s important that patients have the option of seeing either a male or a female doctor,\u00ab says Bente Stallknecht.<\/p>\n<p>At UCPH, there are no overarching guidelines for how to work with gender-imbalanced programmes \u2014 because this is work best carried out locally, she says:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbAt the Faculty of Health and Medicince, where I\u2019m based, we have a large overrepresentation of women on several programmes \u2014 for instance, veterinary medicine and public health science,\u00ab says Bente Stallknecht, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbAt open house events, we make sure male students are present to represent the programmes. We also work with the promotional imagery for the programmes to ensure the student population looks diverse. And I know that some degree programmes have experimented with setting up men\u2019s groups, so male students can build social communities across year cohorts,\u00ab she says.<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 7 --><br \/>\nBut even though degree programmes can do a lot to recruit gender minorities, there are other factors at play that make it difficult to change the composition, the dean emphasises:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe can try to influence those who apply, but we can\u2019t influence the actual admissions. The majority of our students are admitted via quota 1, where it\u2019s simply the grade point average that determines the outcome. And in quota 2, we can\u2019t actively sort by gender \u2014 that would be discrimination.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Asked whether it is just as important at UCPH to recruit men into women-dominated subjects as it is to recruit women into male-dominated ones, Bente Stallknecht replies:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe short answer is yes. For many, many years there has been a strong focus on getting women into STEM fields, and to some extent that has been successful. And I think it\u2019s fair to say that we are now running some of the same kinds of initiatives in the women-dominated fields.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Bente Stallknecht says studies show that both female- and male-dominated programmes pose challenges for gender minorities and increase dropout rates. However, it is particularly in male-dominated programmes that female students\u2019 well-being is impacted.<\/p>\n<p>That said, this is not something that affects the Faculty of Science \u2014 the faculty with the most male-dominated programmes:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s actually not something we see in our own well-being surveys or in the faculty\u2019s dropout statistics. One exception is Computer Science, where the dropout rate is equal for both genders, which they attribute to a strong study environment,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<p>We can only guess what the 19th century first Danish women medical students Nielsine Nielsen and Marie Gleerup thought of the study environment when they began their studies 150 years ago. But if the current trend continues unchanged, male doctors will be increasingly rare in the future. In 2024, 68 per cent of students admitted to medicine were women.<br \/>\n<!-- end of module 8 --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>150 years after the first female students at the University of Copenhagen, women are now clearly in the majority \u2014 but the genders are still divided across degree programmes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":137526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","expression-portrait_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why some degrees attract only women \u2014 and others only men \u2014 University Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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Pictured here is an archive photo from UCPH\u2019s matriculation ceremony."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"Gender balance","text":"This is a story about what will follow","use_post_excerpt":true},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>Mads Outzen Foghsgaard was excited to start on the education studies programme in the summer of 2024. He had applied for admission via the alternative quota 2 admissions process, and this had given him the opportunity to examine in detail what the degree programme was actually about.<\/p>\n<p>It sounded \u00bbsuper exciting\u00ab and just right for him, he says, having previously wavered a bit between sociology, anthropology, and education studies. It definitely had to be something involving people and culture.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">Admissions 2025<\/p>\n<p>6,822 new bachelor\u2019s students have been offered a place at the University of Copenhagen in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>62 per cent of those admitted are women, and 38 per cent are men.<\/p>\n<p>The average age is 23.<\/p>\n<p>UCPH admits students across a total of 75 bachelor\u2019s programmes.<\/p>\n<p>78.8 per cent of admitted students got into their first-choice programme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Mads Outzen Foghsgaard had read that there was a large majority of women in the programme, and he had prepared himself for not having many male fellow students. But that was okay.<\/p>\n<p>He had just returned from a stay in a Danish folk high school, where the gender distribution had also been skewed, and that hadn\u2019t been a problem \u2014 so it didn\u2019t scare him.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbMy dad and I had sat down and done a bit of math to figure out how many boys and girls would be in the programme based on the percentage numbers we had found online. We concluded that there would probably be a small handful of guys,\u00ab he says, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbBut when I showed up on the first day of class, I found out that there were only three guys in a group of about 50. It was a bit overwhelming to realise that we were so few,\u00ab laughs Mads Outzen Foghsgaard, who is now in his second semester with one other male fellow student \u2014 the third has dropped out.<\/p>\n<h3>Minority gender drops out<\/h3>\n<p>Education is that degree programme at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) with the greatest gender imbalance. In 2024, 95 per cent of admitted students were women. Men made up only five per cent.<\/p>\n<p>But Mads Outzen Foghsgaard is no anomaly. When you zoom out and look at the university as a whole, the trend is clear: Women are taking up more space, and men less.<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, 61 per cent of all new students at UCPH were women, and 39 per cent were men \u2014 a distribution that has remained fairly stable over the past five to ten years, according to figures obtained by the University Post from the University of Copenhagen&#8217;s education and students unit.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Image","image":{"ID":179037,"id":179037,"title":"ChatGPT Image 30. jun. 2025, 14.07.33","filename":"chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33.png","filesize":2167994,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33.png","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/why-some-degrees-attract-only-women-and-others-only-men\/chatgpt-image-30-jun-2025-14-07-33\/","alt":"","author":"9","description":"","caption":"","name":"chatgpt-image-30-jun-2025-14-07-33","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":178290,"date":"2025-06-30 12:08:27","modified":"2025-06-30 12:08:27","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1536,"height":1024,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-480x320.png","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-768x512.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-1280x853.png","large-width":1280,"large-height":853,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33.png","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33.png","2048x2048-width":1536,"2048x2048-height":1024,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-290x193.png","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":193,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-290x180.png","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-700x467.png","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":467,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202514.07.33-990x660.png","extended-width":990,"extended-height":660}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"UCPH got the figures in this overview from the Ministry of Higher Education and Science. This data only has two gender categories."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>There are a few places at UCPH however, where the men dominate. This can be seen especially at the Faculty of Science, particularly on the degree programmes Machine Learning and Data Science (where in 2024, 13 per cent of those admitted were women) and on Computer Science (14 per cent women).<\/p>\n<p>Studies over the years have pointed to a range of challenges associated with gender-imbalanced degree programmes.<\/p>\n<p>The think tank DEA, for example, recently concluded that the risk of drop out is higher if you are a gender minority on a higher education programme with a skewed gender distribution (defined in the study as less than 25 per cent of one gender among the students).<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe looked into what it means for an individual student to be in a programme where they are clearly in the minority. And it seems that the more clearly you are a minority, the greater the chance you will regret your choice of study and drop out,\u00ab says Kristian Thor Jakobsen, chief economist and deputy director at DEA.<\/p>\n<p>The analysis does not offer any clear-cut answers as to why this is the case, but one suggestion might be that students simply lack peers they can relate to, according to the deputy director.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbStudents tell us that communities are important, so if we want to explain the correlation with dropout rates, it could suggest that they miss communities that in some way are shaped by gender,\u00ab says Kristian Thor Jakobsen.<\/p>\n<h3>One-sided discussions<\/h3>\n<p>For education student Mads Outzen Foghsgaard it is a new experience to be in a community where there are so few men, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI\u2019ve mostly been used to being in all-male groups, so this is quite new for me. But I can definitely feel that the other guy and I have naturally sought each other out \u2014 and we\u2019ve become quite close, so that\u2019s a positive,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>If he had been the only man on the programme, continuing the next two years would probably have been tough, he says. Because even though the study environment is open and inclusive, not all conversations are ones that Mads Outzen Foghsgaard and his fellow male student can naturally take part in, he says:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s a bit hard to explain, but sometimes it does happen that people talk over our heads a bit, or that things come up that we can\u2019t really take part in,\u00ab he says, quickly adding that he has made good friends on the programme and is happy to be there.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbBut sometimes the discussions do get a bit one-sided. For example, we\u2019ve had several conversations about the difficult aspects of being a female educator, and I think the difficult aspects of being a male educator have been left out,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>It both frustrates and puzzles him that more men aren\u2019t applying for education studies, because if you ask him, the subject has the potential to interest everyone regardless of gender.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Quote","quote":"Sometimes we feel left out of the conversation","quotee":"Mads Outzen Foghsgaard, education student","style":"extended"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>\u00bbI know that education studies as a university subject is dominated by women, but I don\u2019t think there is anything academic that justifies the idea that the programme should be more for women than for men.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h3>Education is not a care profession<\/h3>\n<p>At UCPH, there are major differences in how the individual programmes work with study environment, recruitment and retention in relation to gender. And even though Education is the most gender-imbalanced programme at UCPH, it is not something that is given particular attention by university management, according to Gerd Christensen, who is head of the Education programme.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe actually don\u2019t see it as a problem. In all of our student well-being surveys, it appears that both male and female students are thriving, and we haven\u2019t experienced it as being an issue in the classroom either,\u00ab she says, adding that there are no special initiatives for either recruiting or retaining male students.<\/p>\n<p>Management does however pay attention to ensuring that there are both male and female lecturers, so that there are role models who can inspire different students.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/they-let-in-the-women-and-nothing-was-ever-the-same\/\"><em>They let in the women \u2014 and nothing was ever the same<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt would definitely be an advantage to have more male students, and I also can\u2019t explain why the gender distribution is so skewed,\u00ab she says, emphasising like Mads Outzen Foghsgaard that she does not consider Education to be in the same category as the traditional care professions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe programme deals with education in a broad sense \u2014 everything from early childhood to school, working life and prisons. I believe many people, regardless of gender, could find something within the field that they find interesting,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<h3>More non-males in computer science<\/h3>\n<p>Things look quite different at the Department of Computer Science (DIKU), which over the past ten years has actively worked to recruit more female students. This is according to Ken Friis Larsen, who is normally deputy head of department for teaching, but is currently acting head of DIKU, which oversees nearly 15 degree programmes \u2014 including both Machine Learning and Data Science, as well as Computer Science.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe gender imbalance in Computer Science \u2014 and to some extent in the technical and scientific STEM subjects more generally \u2014 is not a UCPH problem. It\u2019s not even a Danish problem. It\u2019s an international issue that is culturally conditioned and very hard to counter,\u00ab says Ken Friis Larsen, adding that the department has for many years actively worked to recruit and retain more women.<\/p>\n<p>This includes the Femtech initiative, which organises tech workshops aimed at female upper secondary students. And at open house events they highlight the diversity of topics that you can work with in the STEM fields.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Image","image":{"ID":179023,"id":179023,"title":"ChatGPT Image 30. jun. 2025, 13.07.08","filename":"chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08.png","filesize":2351619,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08.png","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/why-some-degrees-attract-only-women-and-others-only-men\/chatgpt-image-30-jun-2025-13-07-08\/","alt":"","author":"9","description":"","caption":"","name":"chatgpt-image-30-jun-2025-13-07-08","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":178290,"date":"2025-06-30 11:16:18","modified":"2025-06-30 11:16:18","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1536,"height":1024,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-480x320.png","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-768x512.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-1280x853.png","large-width":1280,"large-height":853,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08.png","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08.png","2048x2048-width":1536,"2048x2048-height":1024,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-290x193.png","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":193,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-290x180.png","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-700x467.png","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":467,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/chatgptimage30.jun.202513.07.08-990x660.png","extended-width":990,"extended-height":660}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":false,"alternative_caption":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>On the degree programmes, student groups are also organised according to a principle that ensures a certain number of gender minorities on each team. And when prospective students check out the different programmes on the UCPH website, they are met with images showing a \u00bbdiverse group of students\u00ab.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s extremely important that there are role models people can identify with. Statistically, we probably have more images of women on the website than are actually represented in the student populace. And that\u2019s not to deceive anyone, but to emphasise that computer scientists can look different,\u00ab says Ken Friis Larsen.<\/p>\n<p>But \u2014 he adds \u2014 at the department, they\u2019re not really keen on talking about gender imbalance in terms of \u2018men and women\u2019. They would rather work with representation in a broader sense.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe prefer to say that we have too few non-men on the programmes, and that\u2019s actually how we address the problem in practice,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>And their various initiatives appear to be working:<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Quote","quote":"Women are the most important human resource of the future \u2014 measured by education\r\n\r\n\r\n ","quotee":"Claus Holm, Head of the Danish School of Education (DPU)","style":"extended"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>\u00bbWe\u2019re seeing that the balance is slowly beginning to shift. At one point, we had more students named [the Danish boys name. ed.] Rasmus in Computer Science than we had women. But now we\u2019re approaching 20 per cent women, and of course our goal is to exceed the magical 25 per cent,\u00ab he says, noting that being part of a gender minority is less overwhelming when that minority exceeds 25 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>He also emphasises that the gender imbalance at Computer Science for the 2024 cohort was particularly pronounced. In previous years, the intake of women has been around 20 per cent.<\/p>\n<h3>Men are going nowhere<\/h3>\n<p>While local UCPH initiatives are working to attract more women to STEM subjects, the Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk Erhverv) has a slightly different focus. The trend of men disappearing from longer duration higher education programmes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=177575&amp;preview=true\"><em>Young, brilliant, and tired of being underestimated<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A recent projection from the Ministry of Children and Education showed that in the future, there will be significantly fewer academics on the Danish labour market \u2014 and that a vanishingly small proportion of that academic workforce will be male.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, most expected that up to 30 per cent of a youth cohort would get a university degree. The current estimate has dropped to 24 per cent: 28 per cent women (down from 32 per cent) and just 19 per cent men (down from 27 per cent).<\/p>\n<p>These figures concern Mads Eriksen Storm, head of education and research policy at the Danish Chamber of Commerce:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe difference between men and women has become very large. And this means that we will see a similarly large gender imbalance in the academic labour market in the future,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Image","image":{"ID":179021,"id":179021,"title":"4957d5a8-4917-4a70-8940-679d5c7f53cb","filename":"4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb.png","filesize":2134475,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb.png","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/why-some-degrees-attract-only-women-and-others-only-men\/4957d5a8-4917-4a70-8940-679d5c7f53cb\/","alt":"","author":"9","description":"","caption":"","name":"4957d5a8-4917-4a70-8940-679d5c7f53cb","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":178290,"date":"2025-06-30 11:16:05","modified":"2025-06-30 11:16:05","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1024,"height":1536,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb-480x720.png","medium-width":480,"medium-height":720,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb-768x1152.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":1152,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":1536,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb.png","1536x1536-width":1024,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb.png","2048x2048-width":1024,"2048x2048-height":1536,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb-290x435.png","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":435,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb-290x180.png","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb-700x1050.png","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":1050,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4957d5a849174a708940679d5c7f53cb-990x1485.png","extended-width":990,"extended-height":1485}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":false,"alternative_caption":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>The imbalance is already clear in today\u2019s labour market, says Mads Eriksen Storm, especially in the healthcare sector:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThere has been a shift over the years. In the past, the classic image of a doctor was a man \u2014 in the future, it will increasingly be a woman. The same goes for law, which has also largely become a women-dominated field,\u00ab says Mads Eriksen Storm.<\/p>\n<p>Asked what the actual problem is with this trend, he says:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIf you assume that men and women are equally talented, then in the future we will see a waste of this talent, simply because we have failed to educate men to fulfil their potential.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>It comes as no surprise to Mads Eriksen Storm, that initiatives have been launched to attract and recruit more women to male-dominated fields \u2014 but not to the same extent the other way around.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt comes down to the fact that there have been many foundation grants for recruitment work in male-dominated fields. And a lot of evidence suggests that, in many places, this has been increasingly successful in attracting women. But the men \u2014 they\u2019re not budging,\u00ab says Mads Eriksen Storm.<\/p>\n<h3>The market adapts to women<\/h3>\n<p>Claus Holm is Head of Department at the Danish School of Education (DPU) at Aarhus University. Last year, he led an expert group under the Ministry of Children and Education that examined the role of gender in daycare, primary schools and upper secondary education.<\/p>\n<p>He says there is a clear trend across the entire education system: Girls outperform boys, and this is especially apparent in longer duration higher education programmes.<\/p>\n<p>The big question is: Why?<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThere are several theories, but no definitive answer,\u00ab begins Claus Holm.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the most interesting theory is that there is both an expectation effect and an ambition effect at play among women.<\/p>\n<p>The first refers to the way boys and girls are met with different expectations throughout the education system. Typically, boys tend to face limited expectations, while girls are encouraged to excel \u2014 and that has an impact on how they perform, explains Claus Holm.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Quote","quote":"The men \u2014 they\u2019re not budging","quotee":"Mads Eriksen Storm, head of education and research policy at the Danish Chamber of Commerce","style":"extended"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>\u00bbThe ambition effect, on the other hand, has to do with the fact that over the past 100 years, women have fought to make themselves visible \u2014 not least in the education system. Recent generations of women have seen their mothers and grandmothers achieve gender equality through education,\u00ab he says, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThis can help us understand why women today perform better than men in the education system.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Claus Holm also finds it interesting to consider what effect this will have on women\u2019s position, performance and pay in the labour market. He points out that many workplaces today place a strong emphasis on creating good conditions for parental leave and flexible work opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbLed by the Danish Chamber of Commerce, many companies have recognised that women are the most important human resource of the future in terms of education. That\u2019s why the business sector is particularly keen to ensure that women do not become less career-oriented, for example when they have a child,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<h3>Diverse environments<\/h3>\n<p>So what is the University of Copenhagen management\u2019s overall ambition when it comes to gender imbalance in the degree programmes? This was answered by the Dean of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and the UCPH strategic sponsor for diversity, Bente Stallknecht:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe want diversity across our degree programmes more generally. This is partly because it affects the study environment, and partly because it\u2019s important that we end up with a diverse labour market. For example, it\u2019s important that patients have the option of seeing either a male or a female doctor,\u00ab says Bente Stallknecht.<\/p>\n<p>At UCPH, there are no overarching guidelines for how to work with gender-imbalanced programmes \u2014 because this is work best carried out locally, she says:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbAt the Faculty of Health and Medicince, where I\u2019m based, we have a large overrepresentation of women on several programmes \u2014 for instance, veterinary medicine and public health science,\u00ab says Bente Stallknecht, and continues:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbAt open house events, we make sure male students are present to represent the programmes. We also work with the promotional imagery for the programmes to ensure the student population looks diverse. And I know that some degree programmes have experimented with setting up men\u2019s groups, so male students can build social communities across year cohorts,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Quote","quote":" We can try to influence applicants \u2014 but not the admissions process itself","quotee":"Bente Stallknecht, Dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences and UCPH strategy sponsor for diversity","style":"extended"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>But even though degree programmes can do a lot to recruit gender minorities, there are other factors at play that make it difficult to change the composition, the dean emphasises:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe can try to influence those who apply, but we can\u2019t influence the actual admissions. The majority of our students are admitted via quota 1, where it\u2019s simply the grade point average that determines the outcome. And in quota 2, we can\u2019t actively sort by gender \u2014 that would be discrimination.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Asked whether it is just as important at UCPH to recruit men into women-dominated subjects as it is to recruit women into male-dominated ones, Bente Stallknecht replies:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe short answer is yes. For many, many years there has been a strong focus on getting women into STEM fields, and to some extent that has been successful. And I think it\u2019s fair to say that we are now running some of the same kinds of initiatives in the women-dominated fields.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>Bente Stallknecht says studies show that both female- and male-dominated programmes pose challenges for gender minorities and increase dropout rates. However, it is particularly in male-dominated programmes that female students\u2019 well-being is impacted.<\/p>\n<p>That said, this is not something that affects the Faculty of Science \u2014 the faculty with the most male-dominated programmes:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt\u2019s actually not something we see in our own well-being surveys or in the faculty\u2019s dropout statistics. One exception is Computer Science, where the dropout rate is equal for both genders, which they attribute to a strong study environment,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<p>We can only guess what the 19th century first Danish women medical students Nielsine Nielsen and Marie Gleerup thought of the study environment when they began their studies 150 years ago. But if the current trend continues unchanged, male doctors will be increasingly rare in the future. In 2024, 68 per cent of students admitted to medicine were women.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with upcoming events and top University of Copenhagen stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":42,"name":"Education","slug":"education","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":42,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":661,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":14,"name":"Portrait Article","slug":"portrait_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":14,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":802,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[{"term_id":5468,"name":"Optional","slug":"optional-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5468,"taxonomy":"translation_priority","description":"","parent":0,"count":674,"filter":"raw"}]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/immatrikulation_y9a65902-1280x854.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178290"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179481,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178290\/revisions\/179481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}