Profile: female students
Petra Schorat-Waly; Jutta Rump; Imke Buß; Janina Kaiser; Melanie Schiedhelm
Baseline
Although women graduate from high school more often than men, have better grades in university entrance qualifications, and make up half of the student body, there are still differences in the subject preferences of men and women: Men are still significantly more likely to study engineering or mathematics/science, while the proportion of women studying language and cultural studies, medicine/health sciences, and social sciences/welfare/psychology/education remains significantly higher than for men (Middendorff et al. 2013). Men generally prefer fields in which there are particularly good job and career prospects (Berthold and Leichsenring 2012), and thus top positions in business continue to be held by a majority of men. There is also a need for action with regard to gender equity in science and research. The proportion of women in science reduces from career level to career level in every subject, and even in subjects with a high proportion of women, the professoriate is still overwhelmingly male (Ridder et al. 2013).
It remains to be noted that despite better educational attainment and employment rates since the 1970s (Hofmeister and Hünefeld 2010), a number of qualified women are still lost on their way "into the workforce and up the ladder" (Rump 2012). Therefore, it is important to support female students already during their studies.
Impact on study situation
Gender equality is one of the central tasks of universities and is anchored in the higher education laws of the German states. According to the CHE Diversity Report, which examines the consequences of increasing diversity at German universities, the gender issue is still topical in the university environment today (Berthold and Leichsenring 2012, p. 103). The report focuses primarily on the framework conditions that exist in German universities and how students with their different starting situations (migration background, gender, socio-economic situation) can adapt and make a career for themselves (Berthold and Leichsenring 2012). Women often face different problems than men during their studies and also afterwards and thus have worse starting conditions. On average, more women than men are exposed to stresses such as family care obligations. Moreover, currently universities of applied sciences and universities are still characterized by "male patterns" such as frontal teaching, homosocial co-option, i.e. old boys' networks and the reproduction of the stereotypical gender hierarchy in everyday academic life (Blome et al. 2013, p. 55 ff.). This must be taken into account by universities when aligning their structures in order to improve the adaptation situation for women (Berthold and Leichsenring 2012, p. 100 ff.), because it is also striking that although the total student population in Germany has a balanced gender ratio, women are severely underrepresented in STEM courses at 36% (Berthold and Leichsenring 2012, p. 214). Stereotypes that are partly responsible for this ("girls can't do math") need to be dismantled and young people encouraged to pursue educational and career paths that seem to contradict their gender identity (Wentzel 2008).
What needs to be made clear, then, is that gender is still an important and elementary social category that determines opportunities and non-opportunities. Stereotypical ideas about gender influence young people's career choices, and women encounter "glass ceilings" both in their academic careers and in business. These are barriers that are not immediately apparent, but are responsible for the underrepresentation of women at higher career levels (Beaufays 2012, p. 91). In Gardenswartz and Rowe's "diversity dimensions" (Gardenswartz and Rowe 1995), which are often invoked, gender is listed with age, skin color, and sexual orientation, among others, as an inner dimension. The characteristics of the inner dimension are usually immediately perceptible in people and therefore structure our social reality. For this reason, the dimension "gender" has to be considered constantly and everywhere in order to be able to guarantee real equal opportunities (Degele et al. 2011).
Care responsibilities
Female students are more often involved in family responsibilities than their male peers. This is true both in terms of responsibility for a child, whether their own or their partner's, and in terms of caring for relatives.
| Percentage of all respondents | Percentage of women |
Students with child | 5% | 68,7% |
Students with care responsibilities | 3,1% | 64,1%
|
Table 1: Proportion of female students with family responsibilities
Note: The female proportion in the overall survey is 58%
Source: Berthold and Leichsenring ( 2012, p. 105 ff.).
The greater involvement of women in family caregiving may also have an impact on the health of female students. Indeed, students with caregiving responsibilities report suffering from health limitations more frequently than students without family responsibilities. The authors of the CHE study suspect a connection between the stated illnesses and the psychological pressure and physical strain of caregiving responsibilities (Berthold and Leichsenring 2012, p. 108).
| Students without limitations | Students with chronic physical limitations | Students with mental illness | |
Students with child | 2,7% | 10,4% | 7,1% | |
Students with care responsibilities | 4,3% | 7,6% | 4,9% | |
Table 2: Proportion of students with family responsibilities and health restrictions
Source: Berthold and Leichsenring (2012, p. 173)
Proportion of Women in Study Subjects at the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences
At the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, the proportion of female students in the summer semester 2016 is 54% and has developed positively compared to previous years. Thus, in the overall view at the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, female students are slightly overrepresented. However, a clear gender-specific subject preference is still evident. Significant underrepresentation, i.e., the proportion of women is less than 30%, is evident in the bachelor's degree programs in business information systems (23%) and logistics (30%). In the study programs Viticulture and Oenology, the proportion of women is 33%. The study programs Nursing Education (85%), International Human Resource Management and Organization (83%), Nursing, Social Work (79%) and Health Economics (74%) show a significant overrepresentation of women, i.e. the proportion of women is over 70%. The percentage of female students in consecutive master's programs is 52% in the summer semester of 2016. In the transition to the master's program, the proportion of women increases in the study programs Controlling (+8%), Marketing (+7%) and Finance (+5%). The proportion of female students decreases in the programs Business Information Systems (-9%), Social Work (-7%), Health Care Management (-5%) and Logistics (-4%). Female students are underrepresented in the master's programs in Business Information Systems (14%) and Logistics (26%). In contrast, they are overrepresented in the International Human Resource Management (81%), International Marketing Management (75%) and Social Work (72%) programs.
Offers of the Equal Opportunities Office
In 2014, the Equal Opportunities Officer took the above results as an opportunity to analyze the gender homogeneity of selected degree programs, building on the AGFRA concept "Gender heterogeneity in degree programs", and to derive specific recommendations for action (Raum 2014). The Equal Opportunity Office of the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences thus pursues targeted measures to promote gender heterogeneity in study programs in which one gender is significantly under- or over-represented. In addition, the Equal Opportunity Office provides various offers for students: These include not only offerings that specifically serve to promote women, such as study and career advising for women, but also non-gender-specific offerings that are intended to promote diversity and equal opportunity at the university. The latter includes, for example, advising services designed to create equal opportunity between students with and without family responsibilities.
More information on the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences' gender equality policy can be found here:
www.hwg-lu.de/service/chancengleichheit-und-vielfalt/gleichstellung/
gleichstellungspolitik.html.
Gender toolbox of the Heinrich Böll Foundation for methodology and didactics available at:
https://www.gwi-boell.de/de/2020/02/07/gender-toolbox-methodik-und-didaktik
Literature
Beaufays, S. (2012): Leadership positions in science - On the formation of male sociability regimes using the example of institutions of excellence. In: S. Beaufays, A. Engels and H. Kahlert (Eds.): Simply top? New gender perspectives on careers in science: Campus Verlag.
Berthold, C.; Leichsenring, H. (eds.) (2012): CHE: Diversity report: the full report. Available online at www.che-consult.de/fileadmin/pdf/publikationen/CHE_Diversity_Report_Gesamtbericht_komprimiert.pdf, last checked 25.04.2016.
Blome, E.; Gülcher, N.; Smykalla, S. (eds.) (2013): Handbook on gender equality policy at universities: from women's advancement to diversity management. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Degele, N.; Bethmann, S.; Heckemeyer, K. (2011): Why we consider gender to understand society. A plea for a heteronormativity-critical perspective of analysis. Available online at www.feministisches-institut.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/DegeleBethmann, last checked 04/25/2016.
Gardenswartz, L.; Rowe, A. (1995): Diverse teams at work. Irwin.
Hofmeister, H.; Hünefeld, L. (2010): Women in leadership (04/25/2016). Available online at www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/gender/frauen-in-deutschland/
49400/fuehrungspositionen.
Middendorff, E.; Apolinarski, B.; Poskowsky, J.; Kandulla, M.; Netz, N. (2013): The economic and social situation of students in Germany 2012: 20th Social Survey of the German Student Union conducted by the HIS Institute for Higher Education Research. Available online at www.sozialerhebung.de/download/20/
soz20_hauptbericht_gesamt.pdf, last checked 25.04.2016.
Raum, E. (2014): Causes of gender homogeneity in degree programs at Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences. Available online at www.hwg-lu.de/service/studium-lehre/diversity/ursachen-der-genderhomogenitaet-von-studiengaengen-an-der-hochschule-ludwigshafen-am-rhein.html, last checked on 04/26/2016.
Ridder, D.; Giebisch, P.; Hachmeister, C.-D.; Leichsenring, H. (2013): Subject cultures and female science careers: Making success factors of women's advancement visible. Key findings and recommendations for action. Available online at www.che.de/downloads/Handlungsempfehlungen_FADS_130218_1530.pdf, last checked 25.04.2016.
Rump, J. (2012): Keynote lecture: Megatrend women: Necessity or fad. Available online at de.slideshare.net/LeaderinnenOstschweiz/impuls-megatrend-frauen-profdr-jutta-rump-bei-leaderinnen-ostschweiz, last checked on 25.04.2016.
Wentzel, W. (2008): I want this and this is my path! - Young women on their way to a career in technology. Qualitative interviews with former Girls'Day participants in training and studies (Schriftenreihe, 7).
Citation
Schorat-Waly, Petra; Rump, Jutta; Buß, Imke; Kaiser, Janina; Schiedhelm, Melanie (2017): Profile: female students. In: Rump, Jutta; Buß, Imke; Kaiser, Janina; Schiedhelm, Melanie; Schorat-Waly, Petra: Toolbox for good teaching in a diverse student body. Working Papers of the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, No. 6. www.hwg-lu.de/arbeitspapiere
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