The Global Gender Gap in Higher Education Graduation Rates

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education compares the graduation rates in academic programs below the doctoral level of men and women in the United States with men in women in five other developed countries. The other nations in the study are Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

The results show that the overall graduation rate of 37 percent for both men and women in the United States is bested only in Japan.

For women in the United States, the graduation rate in all pre-doctoral programs is 44 percent. This rate is equal to the rate for women in Canada but is higher than the rate for women in Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

The graduation rate for women in pre-doctoral programs in the United States is 13 percentage points higher than the rate for American men and is significantly higher than the rate for men in the other developed countries, except for Japan. In Japan, the graduation rate for men is equal to the graduation rate for American women. Japan is the only country among these six nations where men graduate at a higher rate than women.