Fig 1.
The participation rate in the ERASMUS program depends on the subject area.
Participation rate in different subject areas in the 2011–12 ERASMUS program (light blue) and in tertiary education in the participating countries in 2011 (dark blue). The orange circles are the ratios of these fractions. While humanities and arts, social sciences, business and law, engineering, manufacturing and construction are over-represented in the ERASMUS program, the others are under-represented.
Fig 2.
The over-representation of female students in the ERASMUS program is systematic across subject areas.
Fraction of female students in different subject areas in the 2011–12 ERASMUS program (light blue) and in tertiary education in the participating countries in 2011 (dark blue). The orange circles are the ratios of these fractions. For almost all subject areas, female students are over-represented in the ERASMUS program. The only exception is health and welfare, where the ratio is balanced.
Fig 3.
The over-representation of female students in the ERASMUS program is systematic across countries.
Fraction of female students in the 2011–12 ERASMUS program (light blue) and in tertiary education in 2011 (dark blue) for the 33 participating countries. The orange circles are the ratios of these fractions. For Iceland, Italy, Sweden, France, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain, the fractions are similar. For all the other countries, female students are over-represented in the ERASMUS program in comparison to the tertiary student population.
Table 1.
Rank of sending and receiving countries.
Top five countries with the highest number of outgoing (sending) and incoming (receiving) students in the ERASMUS program for academic exchange, i.e., study mobility. The fraction of female students is shown in brackets.
Fig 4.
There is a gender asymmetry in the geographical distribution of involved institutions.
Map of the top 30 academic institutions ranked by the number of outgoing and incoming (a) female and (b) male students. Red circles represent the sending institutions and green squares the receiving ones. The size of the symbols is proportional to the ratio of the number of ERASMUS students to the total number of ERASMUS students in the 30 academic institutions. The overall fraction of receiving students in each country is indicated by the intensity of the color of the country. The Scandinavian universities are much more attractive to male students than to female ones.
Fig 5.
The geographical gender asymmetry is driven by subject area.
Map of the top 30 academic institutions ranked by the number of outgoing and incoming (a,c) female and (b,d) male students, for (a,b) social sciences, business and law and (c,d) natural sciences, mathematics and computing. Red circles represent the sending institutions and green squares the receiving ones. The size of the symbols is proportional to the ratio of the number of ERASMUS students to the total number of ERASMUS students in the 30 academic institutions. The overall fraction of hosted students in each country is indicated by the intensity of the color of the country. When the ERASMUS participants are split into two groups (social sciences and sciences), the female and male mobility patterns are consistent.