Why Are Most University Students Women? Evidence Based on Academic Performance, Study Habits and Parental Influences

In recent history, universities have been the domain of male students. Over the last 30 years or so, however, a dramatic reversal has taken place on Canadian university campuses. According to the 1971 Census, 68% of 25- to 29-year-old university graduates then were male. Ten years later, women had more or less caught up to men as only 54% of graduates were male. By 1991, women had become the slight majority, comprising 51% of graduates. In the 2001 Census, universities had clearly become the domain of women, as they made up 58% of all graduates.

Despite its importance, very little is known about the gender divide in university participation. According to the Youth in Transition Survey, Cohort A, 38.8% of 19-year-old women had attended university by 2003, compared with only 25.7% of 19-year-old men. However, young men and women were about equally likely to attend college.

The focus of this study is to shed light on the gap in university attendance. To this end, we look at differences in academic performance and socio-economic characteristics of girls and boys. In general, girls perform better on standardized tests, have higher overall school marks, spend more time doing homework, are less likely to repeat a grade in school, have higher expectations placed upon them by their parents, and face higher economic returns to completing a university degree.

We find that differences in the characteristics of boys and girls account for more than three quarters (76.8%) of the gap in university participation. In order of importance, the main factors are differences in school marks at age 15 (31.8%), standardized test scores in reading at age 15 (14.6%), study habits (11.1%), parental expectations (8.5%) and the university earnings premium relative to high school (5.3%). Altogether, the four measures of academic performance used in the study—overall marks, performance on standardized reading tests, study habits, and repeating a grade—collectively account for 58.9% of the gender gap in university participation. Overall, marks account for a larger share of the gender gap in university participation than reading scores do. These results suggest that understanding why girls outperform boys in the classroom may be a key to understanding the gender divide in university participation.

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