February 6, 2023, 12:41 pm | Read time: 3 minutes
Economy and politics lament a glaring shortage of skilled workers, especially in the STEM sector, in mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, and technology. This is partly because women are still significantly underrepresented in these professions.
Study programs and professions in the STEM field are still predominantly male-dominated. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Although the number of female students starting STEM programs has “almost doubled” in the past decade, according to the online portal Academics, which describes itself as a “job market and career guide for academics who want to find their own path.” A look at the total numbers—from 59,599 in 2008 to 119,134 in 2019—shows that women in the STEM sector, whether in studies or later in their careers, are still significantly underrepresented.
Only about one-third of students in STEM fields are female
According to the Federal Statistical Office, in the 2021/22 academic year, about two-thirds of the 172,087 first-year students were male. The same was true for the total number of STEM students. Of 1,090,804 students overall, 347,195 were female, just about one-third.
The situation was hardly different for doctoral candidates in 2021. In almost all STEM fields—mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, geosciences, mechanical engineering, electrical and information technology—male doctoral candidates significantly outnumbered female ones, sometimes by a ratio of 5:1. Only in biology did female doctoral candidates lead, with 8,237 compared to 5,564. In pharmacy, the ratio was at least nearly balanced.
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This trend seems almost mathematically logical to continue or even intensify when entering the workforce. It is concerning that about half of all women who studied a STEM subject never work in a STEM profession later. A study cited by Academics from the Institute for Employment Research shows that while 70 percent of men who studied in the STEM field work in a STEM job or have worked in one at least once five years later, only 56 percent of women do.
Number of women in the tech industry grows slowly
The percentage of women actually working in STEM professions increased only slightly from 14.4 to 15.5 percent between 2013 and 2019. This is documented in the “MINT-Report 2021” by Anger, Kohlisch & Plünnecke (Institute of the German Economy) based on data from the Federal Employment Agency. As seen in universities, women are significantly more represented in scientific professions, such as biology, at 37.5 percent, than in electronics, computer science, information technology, etc.
The fundamental underrepresentation of women in STEM professions, or the stagnation of the female share at a low level, is evidenced by another statistic from the online platform Statista from 2022. It shows the proportion of female STEM academics and professionals in Germany from 2011 to 2019. The rate for female academics was 20.2 percent in 2011, gradually increased to 23.4 percent in 2018, only to fall back to 22.6 percent in 2019. The situation is even worse for female professionals in the STEM sector. Here, the percentage fell to 10.8 percent in 2019, below the 11.6 percent level of 2011.
A study by the Federal Employment Agency, covering all women in STEM professions (academics and professionals), shows a slight increase from 14.4 percent of the total 7.3 million employees in 2013 to 15.4 percent of 7.92 million employees in 2018. In absolute numbers, this means an increase from about 1.05 million women in STEM professions in 2013 to about 1.22 million five years later. This results in a ratio of 7:1 between STEM men and STEM women.
This disparity becomes even more apparent when the mentioned approximately 15 percent is compared to the entire labor market. In 2018, 45.7 percent of all employees were female, and by 2021, this number had risen to 46.8 percent.