The incorporation of women higher education: Paradoxical outcomes?

Unlike the extensive cross-national research on occupational sex segregatio n, sex segregation within higher education has yet to be empirically examin ed comparatively. This article reports analyses for a wide range of countri es from 1965 through 1990, using two measures of gender differentiation by field of study. The results indicate that gender differentiation has declin ed surprisingly little. Women are more likely to graduate from education, a rts, humanities, social sciences, and law, and men are more likely to gradu ate from natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Few differences ar e found between more- and less economically developed countries. These find ings echo those in the occupational sex segregation literature.