Portuguese Women in Science and Technology (S&T): Some Gender Features Behind MSc. and PhD. Achievement

worthwhile to stress that a strong gender bias is yet at stake for the
youngsters who begin by now a vocational trajectory leading to further
intermediary technical occupations, a feature which should not be
irrelevant both for education and labour market policy making.

As our main concern deals with women and men in higher education
and post-graduation degrees, let us consider now some of the most recent
data relative to gender distribution among graduation areas. According to
the National Statistical Institute (INE) very high feminisation rates can be
observed, in 2004, among students in Mathematics and Statistics (67,1%),
Environment Protection (75,0%), Life Sciences (59,4%), Physics (58,4%)
and Veterinary Sciences (58,9%); at the same time, the corresponding rates
for the Engineer fields roughly reached some 33%, as an average⁶. Which
means that another specificity of the Portuguese situation appears now
clearly: Portuguese women’s behave quite differently between scientific
and engineer/technological fields⁷, their participation in science being still
increasing while in technology an apparent psychological threshold
seeming to be difficult to overcome.

Relatively to post-graduation studies we must emphasize the growing
participation of women as well: the global feminisation rate came to around
67,4% in 2002, with 56% being the share of women among the whole PhD.
achievers in that same year⁸: a meaningful break between MSc’s and
PhD’s undergoing chances seeming likewise to be evident for women.

⁶ INE (2006).

⁷ The formal association between Engineer and Technology fields is here proposed for sake of
simplification. Actually, a more sophisticated research wouldn´t allow for this assimilation but the
diversity of Higher Education classifications all over the EU, waiting for a complete harmonisation
procedure as yet, makes the distinction quite harmful. For an adequate consideration of this question see,
for instance, Ackers, L. et alii (2004).

⁸ EUROSTAT (2005).

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