Australian Higher Education providers data looks at enrolment and completion numbers by gender and field of education.
This includes STEM courses in:
Compare university enrolment and completion numbers for women and men in STEM fields, non‑STEM fields and health fields. Non-binary and gender diverse people are included in the calculation of proportions and the commentary.
Between 2015 and 2022, the number of enrolments from women in university STEM courses increased from 70,378 to 89,842. This was a 28% increase, compared to a 9% increase for men. This saw the proportion of STEM enrolments from women increase by 3 percentage points (37% compared to 34% in 2015).
Since 2020 the proportion of STEM enrolments from women has remained stable at 37%. This proportion remained the same despite total domestic enrolments (men and women in all fields of education) decreasing 5% from 2021 to 2022.
The number of enrolments from women in postgraduate STEM study decreased 3%, from 16,316 to 15,818. This was similar to the percentage decrease of enrolments from women in undergraduate STEM study, which went down 2%, from 75,846 to 74,024.
From 2021 to 2022, the proportion of university STEM course completions from women remained the same, at 39%. The number of STEM course completions by women increased slightly however, from 18,406 in 2021 to 18,509 in 2022 (this includes both undergraduate and postgraduate completions).
In 2022, women continued to make up over half of student enrolments and completions in:
Women remained underrepresented in enrolments and completions for engineering and IT. Women only made up:
The dataset shows that for university enrolments, STEM is equally popular among non-binary and gender diverse people and all other students. In 2022, 21% of enrolments from non-binary and gender diverse people were in STEM fields. 21% of enrolments from all other students were also in STEM fields.
| Non-binary and gender diverse people | All other students* | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field type | no. | % | no. | % |
| STEM | 804 | 21% | 241,824 | 21% |
| Health | 464 | 12% | 239,293 | 21% |
| Non-STEM | 2,609 | 67% | 667,027 | 58% |
| Total | 3,877 | 100% | 1,148,144 | 100% |
| * All other students includes women and men | ||||
University qualifications in this data include:
Numbers refer to enrolment in a qualification or completion of a qualification in a particular calendar year. Counts include domestic students only, which refers to Australian citizens, New Zealand citizens, and Australian permanent residents and Australian humanitarian visa holders.
Enrolment and completion numbers for an individual field, such as information technology, count double degrees in the same field as a single enrolment/completion, and therefore can be expressed as a count of people. However, when fields are added together, such as at the overall STEM level, double degrees in the same grouping will be double counted, resulting in an inflated number for enrolments or completions. For example, if a person enrolled in a double degree in information technology and engineering and related technologies in 2022, they would be counted as 2 STEM enrolments in that year.
For the above reason, the commentary in this article refers to counts of enrolments rather than counts of people.
Non-binary and gender diverse people are included in the calculation of proportions in the visualisation and the commentary. This group includes students who report a gender other than male or female.
The Department of Education data used in this report are subject to perturbation – small noise added to the data to protect personal information. Because of this, actual enrolments and completions may vary slightly from those reported in this report.
All data for 2015 and enrolments data for 2016 was sourced from Department of Education’s uCube. Data in this report is comparable to Department of Education published pivot tables by broad field of education (BFOE).
Enrolment and completion numbers across years do not represent longitudinal data. You should not use them to calculate attrition rates.
Read more about our methodology and this data.
Comparison of undergraduate enrolments in 2012 with completions by 2016 for women and men in STEM fields, non‑STEM fields and health fields.
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (unpublished data) 2021
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) conducts ongoing longitudinal analyses of different population groups. The analyses follow the same cohort of people over many years to track their outcomes and changes in outcomes over time.
This data shows the completion outcomes for 140,000 people who started undergraduate study for the first time in 2012 and were aged under 25 at the time.
In the ABS’s sample of undergraduates, more women than men started undergraduate study in 2012. However, STEM enrolments for men were nearly double women’s STEM enrolments. 15% of women who had completed their study by 2016 had completed as STEM graduates, compared to 33% of men.
49% of women who started studying STEM in 2012 completed a STEM degree by 2016, compared to 42% of men. However, 13% of women who started in STEM completed a degree in a different field by 2016, compared to 6% of men.
493 women and 475 men started in a non-STEM or health field in 2012 and switched to complete a degree in STEM by 2016. This was around 1% of all non-STEM and health enrolments.
Information technology had the lowest completion rate for women. Only 25% of women who enrolled in information technology in 2012 graduated with a degree in that field, compared to 37% of men.
Health had the highest completion rate for women. 60% of the women who enrolled in health in 2012 had completed a degree in that field by 2016.
The following table shows initial enrolment counts and completion rates for 2012 STEM enrolments who either kept studying STEM or changed to another field.
| STEM field enrolled in 2012 | Gender | Graduated in same STEM field | Graduated in different STEM field | Graduated in non-STEM field | Graduated in health field | Did not finish by 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natural and physical sciences |
Women n = 9,111 |
49% | 1% | 7% | 8% | 12% |
|
Men n = 8,465 |
44% | 2% | 6% | 3% | 18% | |
| Information technology |
Women n = 804 |
25% | 12% | 14% | 4% | 18% |
|
Men n = 4,269 |
37% | 3% | 5% | 0% | 28% | |
| Engineering and related technologies |
Women n = 1,530 |
34% | 4% | 7% | 5% | 13% |
|
Men n = 8,129 |
34% | 3% | 3% | 1% | 18% | |
| Agriculture, environmental and related studies |
Women n = 1,011 |
47% | 3% | 6% | 0% | 20% |
|
Men n = 843 |
48% | 2% | 2% | 0% | 22% |
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (unpublished data) 2021
The department commissioned the Australian Bureau of Statistics to carry out this longitudinal study.
They analysed the study participation of 140,000 undergraduates aged under 25 in 2012. Only undergraduates who started higher education study for the first time in 2012 were included. This allowed a comparison of qualification outcomes for STEM students with other fields of study over the 5 years from 2012 to 2016.
To do this, the ABS analysed the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA, formerly Multi-Agency Data Integration Project or MADIP) from 2011 to 2016. This is a linked dataset giving anonymised and aggregated analysis of:
By combining this with other ABS data, the ABS determined the transition of students through higher education between 2012 and 2016. Linkage of datasets is based on the data quality for the particular variable and highest level of linked records with the 2011 higher education data. This may have resulted in differences in total numbers and proportions reported.
We have grouped the qualifications broadly into STEM, non-STEM and health, and used further granular details for analysis where possible. All definitions of education, occupation and industry are consistent with our methodology.
Read more about our methodology and this data.
