The gender divide at university
In 1987, for the first time in Australia’s history, more women than men were enrolled in higher education. Many things have changed in Australian higher education since but, as the figure below shows, the gender make-up of our university classrooms is not one of them. In 1989 – the first year for which reliable data were available – 71 per cent of teaching students were women; in 2016, the figure was 73 per cent. In nursing, it was 89 per cent in 1989 and 87 per cent three decades later.