Gender Gap in the ERASMUS Mobility Program

Abstract

Studying abroad has become very popular among students. The ERASMUS mobility program is one of the largest international student exchange programs in the world, which has supported already more than three million participants since 1987. We analyzed the mobility pattern within this program in 2011-12 and found a gender gap across countries and subject areas. Namely, for almost all participating countries, female students are over-represented in the ERASMUS program when compared to the entire population of tertiary students. The same tendency is observed across different subject areas. We also found a gender asymmetry in the geographical distribution of hosting institutions, with a bias of male students in Scandinavian countries. However, a detailed analysis reveals that this latter asymmetry is rather driven by subject and consistent with the distribution of gender ratios among subject areas.

Heterogeneous effects of graduates’ international mobility on employers’ hiring intentions—experimental evidence from Germany

“…The main methodological challenge in studying the effect of ISM on labour market returns is the selectivity of mobile graduates in terms of gender (e.g. Salisbury et al 2010;Böttcher et al 2016), socio-economic background (e.g. Lörz et al 2016;Netz and Finger 2016), personality traits (Zimmermann and Neyer 2013), academic skills and literacy (Salisbury et al 2013), inter-cultural communication skills (Williams 2005), mobility capital (Wiers-Jenssen 2013) and professional orientations (Netz 2015).…”

International mobility and education inequality among Brazilian undergraduate students

“…A growing number of research show that female students are more likely to pursue international mobility (e.g. Böttcher et al 2016;Ramos 2009). Moreover, they suggest that female students tend to pursue international student mobility as a way of escaping highly patriarchal societies (Brooks and Waters 2011;King and Sondhi 2016).…”

Erasmus University Students Motivation and Segments: The Case of Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain

“…As Mures et al (2009) note, some degree programmes, such as business studies, display greater mobility. Similarly, Böttcher et al (2016) note that participation in the Erasmus programme differs between students of humanities, social science, economics and law and students of subjects relating to engineering, industry and construction. Survey respondents were selected using a systematic sampling method.…”

“…Many students travel abroad for the purpose of continuing their higher education studies in foreign institutions, a practice that is promoted by exchange schemes, grants and agreements. The mobility of students undertaking a period of study in a foreign university in Europe is on the rise (Ariño, Soler & Llopis, 2014), with Spain receiving the highest number of Erasmus students, followed by France, Germany and the United Kingdom (Stilianos, Georgios, Vasilik & Labros, 2013;Böttcher et al, 2016). According to data on Erasmus students published by the European Commission (2015), roughly 290,000 students benefited from European Union grants to study or train abroad in 2015.…”