Women continued to outpace men in higher education across the European Union in 2024, with the gender gap particularly striking in several major fields of study.
Eurostat data show that around 4.5 million people graduated from tertiary education across the EU during the year. Women accounted for approximately 2.6 million graduates, compared with 1.9 million men — meaning women represented a clear majority of those completing university-level studies.
The gap was not confined to a handful of disciplines. Women graduated in greater numbers than men across most areas of study, although the scale of the difference varied sharply depending on the subject.
The most pronounced imbalance was recorded in education. Female graduates outnumbered male graduates by four to one, highlighting the continuing concentration of women in professions linked to teaching and education.
A broadly balanced picture emerged in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary studies, as well as in services, where the numbers of male and female graduates were relatively close.
The pattern was dramatically reversed in information and communication technologies (ICT). Men accounted for nearly four graduates for every woman, with 3.7 times as many male as female graduates in the field.
The figures underline a persistent gender divide in European higher education: women are more likely to graduate overall, but men remain heavily represented in some of the sectors most closely associated with technology and digital skills.
The imbalance has implications beyond universities. As European economies compete for workers in areas such as artificial intelligence, software development and advanced digital technologies, the continued under-representation of women in ICT remains a significant challenge.
At the same time, the overwhelming female majority among graduates in education points to another long-standing feature of Europe's labour market — the concentration of women in sectors responsible for developing the next generation of workers.
The 2024 figures therefore tell a more complex story than a simple gender gap in university attainment. Women are leading men in the number of graduates, but the subjects they choose — and the career paths that follow — remain strongly shaped by gender. Photo by Sasikiran 10, Wikimedia commons.