The dimension I chose for gender inequality was advanced degrees awarded at the PhD level. I wanted to learn what the disparity between males and females were for awarded advanced degrees, how this compared to undergraduate degrees, and which countries had the most equal rates of degrees awarded by gender. The most important indicator for this domain was undergraduate degrees awarded and PhD degrees awarded. These two indicators are both incredibly important; the United States awarded forty six percent of their PhD degrees to females. This number appears innocuous and largely equal. However, by examining the indicator of bachelor’s degrees awarded, sixty percent of bachelor’s degrees went to females from 2012 to 2016 in the United States. Why does sixty percent of bachelor’s degrees go to females compared to only forty six percent of doctoral degrees? This number/percentage drop-off certainly complexifies the United State’s level of equality for female doctoral degrees. As such, to obtain a more complete analysis of doctoral degrees awarded by gender, it becomes imperative to also examine undergraduate degrees awarded.

The National Center for Education Statistics and the US Department of Education compile many statistics and data to examine and confront gender inequality within the academy. Not all nations, however, have such thorough data. Although discovering PhD’s awarded by nation was a quick find, undergraduate degrees by gender for countries outside of North America became much more difficult. Many nations do not track or poorly track the gender divide within academia at the undergraduate level. Adding even more complexity to the data, when observing international rates of doctoral degrees awarded by gender, the area/department of study becomes even more difficult to navigate. Tracking degrees-awarded does not offer a nuanced synthesis of gender inequality within the academy; are departments/areas of study at the doctoral level contributing to a more equal number by gender? In other words, are degrees largely segregated by gender? I found trouble navigating in-depth data indicators for doctoral degrees awarded by gender for countries outside of the United States.

The National Science Foundation conducted a powerful study breaking down fifty-six nations by doctoral degrees and gender. Unfortunately, with only fifty-six nations included, a vast amount of data and indicators need to be collected and analyzed.  As a result, I have access to overall doctoral degrees awarded by gender for a wide variety of countries, but many of these nations do not have in-depth (from what I could find) statistics regarding a breakdown of doctoral degrees by gender. In order to write a synthesis and contextualization pertaining to the results, more in-depth and nuanced data is needed.

With the information provided, the countries with the smallest gender gap in PhD’s awarded were Australia, Israel, Macedonia, Croatia, Italy, Estonia, New Zealand, Finland, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Argentina and Mongolia. Each of these nations ranged from fifty to fifty five percent of PhD’s going to women. The countries with the highest number of gender inequality for PhD’s were Taiwan, Georgia, South Korea, Iran, Jordan, Uganda, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, and Colombia. Taiwan had a stunning twenty-six percent of doctoral degrees awarded to females while Colombia reached thirty nine percent. The data is only from 2010, however. As a result, more years need to be included. In doing so, outliers will have a lesser influence on the results.

Above all, it is imperative that more countries participate in the surveys. Fifty-six nations does not offer an adequate analysis. Moreover, countries need to supply both undergraduate and graduate statistics to verify that both tiers are in proportion with one-another. If they are not, then social scientists will have to ask what factors are causing men or women to enter the workforce after obtaining a bachelor’s degree? Is it a correlation with particular departments that are more segregated by gender? Why are certain departments lacking gender diversity? Social scientists are well aware of these questions and will continue to seek more data and indicators in the future.