How could the government encourage more women study higher education

Question

1- How could the government encourage more women study higher education?

2- How could the government encourage more women choose studies that are more income-rewarding, like the most technical, such as engineers?

Answer 1

More women than men attend university in the United States and in the UK, but If you wanted even more than there are now then the government can do what it does to encourage anything else, subsidize it.

As for getting more women into STEM, well it depends on why they are not going into those fields at the moment. if it is simply a effort vs reward thing then subsidy would work. If it is simple that women tend not to have the aptitude to successfully study STEM subjects then there is no way to encourage it.

Answer 2

First and foremost, women don't study in STEM fields at an equal rate to men, for reasons traditionally attributed to social stigma and gender identities created by our society, though recent polls have shown that it may have to do with the tech industry's lack of flexibility in child rearing (I.E. being gone from a teaching or nursing job for a year or two is deemed acceptable, but being gone from the tech industry for that amount of time tends to cause major issues in gaining employment).

For a government to change the social stigmas and gender identities, it would have to better advertise those women who currently are in the industry. Tech women would have to become a common enough sight that the fields in question wouldn't be written off as male-centric.

For a government to change the tech industry's take on stay-at-home mothering is a completely different beast; while one could mandate a long maternity/paternity leave, the attitudes of recruiters toward motivated individuals looking to re-enter the field will only change once there are more motivated individuals looking to re-enter the field.

To that end, the easiest way to increase participation has always been to incentivize it. The government in this scenario could open grants for STEM women, as has been done by third parties for those seeking to become teachers.

Info on the stay-at-home mothering poll.

Answer 3

Public schools and technical universities can work in colaboration in order to attract girls at a young age, before they decide which career they're going to take.

My university has several programs to attract young girls into science in the hope to interest as many of them into a scientific career. The participation is volunteered and is not part of any school program (those take places on saturdays when the students are mostly away), however, teachers at public schools probably strongly encourages interested kids to participates. Not all of those programs are reserved for girls, but quite a few of them are (links in French):

• Les sciences ça m'intéresse (science is interesting me)
• Internet pour les filles (internet for the girls)
• Les robots, c'est l'affaire des filles (robots are matters for girls)
• La science, c'est aussi pour les filles (siences is for girls, too)

One day per year in the Swiss Canton of Vaud is organized the Journée oser tous les métiers (dare all jobs day). Children attending school can go to work with their parents or other people of their family, so that boys can go with their moms and girls goes with their dad. Twelve years ago when I was myself a school attendant and this day was made up for the first time, it was reserved for girls and we were only boys in the classroom. Now it has changed for equality reasons.

All this policy has succeeded because the proportion of girls among the students has progressed significantly in the recent years. Unfortunately I cannot find a linkable source right now and cannot give numbers, but it has increased from 15% to 25% or something akin. There was so many major changes on our campus the last 12 years that reducing this to an increase in women's proportion would not make much sense, though.

Answer 4

By implementing female-favored sexism.

Of course, the government and universities have been throwing money at trying to get women to do things they don't want for years now, with limited results.

Answer 5

1- How could the government encourage more women study higher education?

Reduce the funding available to males while keeping the existing levels of funding. We have a higher education infrastructure already in place. So if the funding is static but that available to males is reduced then more women will be incentivised to pursue higher education.

2- How could the government encourage more women choose studies that are more income-rewarding, like the most technical, such as engineers?

Again reduce funding to those fields that are not as profitable especially those that are currently dominated by women. This will provide incentive for women to pursue fields that are not traditionally dominated by women and fields that are more likely to provide a quality income once the student graduates.