Women account for only 35% of global STEM graduates, a share unchanged for a decade. We use administrative microdata from centralized university admissions in ten systems to deliver the first cross-national decomposition of the STEM gender gap into a pipeline gap (academic preparedness) and a choice gap (first-choice field conditional on eligibility). In deferred-acceptance platforms where eligibility is score-based, we isolate preferences from access. The pipeline gap varies widely, from -19 to +31 percentage points across education systems. By contrast, the choice gap is remarkably stable: high-scoring women are 25 percentage points less likely than men to rank STEM first.

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27 August 2025     Paper Number CEPDP2120

Download PDF - Pipeline vs. choice: the global gender gap in STEM applications

This CEP discussion paper is published under the centre's Education programme.