Veterinärmedizin ist mit 86 % aktuell das Fach mit der höchsten Frauenquote an deutschen Hochschulen. | Foto: Adobe Stock Since the winter semester 2021/22, there have been more female students than male students at German universities. Economics and social sciences are currently among the most popular subjects for women. Men are clearly outnumbered in veterinary medicine, where around nine out of ten students are female. These are the findings of a recent DatenCHECK study by the CHE Centre for Higher Education.
The proportion of female students in Germany is steadily increasing
Between the winter semesters (WS) 2013/14 and 2023/24, the proportion of female students in Germany increased by a total of 3.3 percentage points. In the winter semester 2023/24, 1,460,481 women were enrolled at a university. This corresponds to a share of 50.9 per cent. The proportion of women among students exceeded 50 per cent for the first time in winter semester 21/22; this had already been the case for first-semester students five years earlier. This is shown by a recent CHE DatenCHECK based on figures from the Federal Statistical Office.
‘125 years after the first woman began studying in Germany, female students have slightly outnumbered men for a few years now,’ summarises Cort-Denis Hachmeister. ‘More women than men are now qualified to study, for example through the Abitur. New academic training occupations in the fields of nursing and healthcare are also playing a role in this development,’ says the Senior Expert Data Analysis at CHE.
Business administration and economics are the most popular subjects for both genders
At state level, the picture is fairly uniform. Only in Saarland, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria do slightly more men study than women. Thuringia has the highest proportion of female students at 60.4 per cent. However, this is mainly due to the private IU International University, which has more than 100,000 (distance) students in Erfurt.
The most popular subject area for both genders is Business administration and economics, with around 226,000 male and around 205,000 female students. For men, computer science and mechanical engineering follow. Social sciences and psychology are in second and third place for women.
Veterinary medicine and nautical science with extreme gender ratios
A look at the gender distribution in individual degree programmes reveals major differences. In veterinary medicine, for example, the proportion of women is 86 per cent. The subject area of transport engineering/nautics has a similarly high proportion of men. Subjects with an almost equal gender ratio are geography and chemistry.
‘It is obvious that there are differences between men and women in their choice of subjects,’ says DatenCHECK author Cort-Denis Hachmeister. ‘A gender imbalance in certain subjects becomes socially problematic if it further exacerbates problems such as the gender pay gap or skills shortages in certain sectors,’ Hachmeister continues. However, a look at the absolute figures also shows that, overall, there is not as much difference in the choice of degree subject as ‘clichéd’ imbalances in some subjects would suggest and that, for example, more women study computer science than German studies.
The DatenCHECK 3/2025 ‘What do women study? What do men study? – Students and first-year students by gender’ draws on data from the Federal Statistical Office, in which only the two categories male and female are shown. Persons with the gender information ‘diverse’ or ‘no information’ are randomly allocated to these two categories. Comparative analyses by Hochschulstart.de, among others, indicate a proportion of diverse students of around 0.2 per cent, so that only a minor distortion effect is assumed for this DatenCHECK.
About this DatenCHECK
The evaluation takes into account data from the Federal Statistical Office for students and first-year students in the winter semester 2023/24. DatenCHECK contains nationwide data as well as data at the level of federal states and subject groups. In addition, information on the number and proportion of students and first-year students in 63 fields of study from agricultural science to dentistry can be selected in interactive tables. The article was published on the hochschuldaten.de portal on 6 March 2025. Author of DatenCHECK 3/2025 ‘What do women study? What do men study? – Students and first-year students by gender’ is Cort-Denis Hachmeister.