CHILE: Women students now in the majority

Last year was the first time that a majority - 51% - of all higher education students in Chile were women, the Education Ministry has reported, writes Kara Frantzich for the Santiago Times. "This is a global trend," said Jaime Bellolio, an economist at the Jaime Guzmán Foundation. "In developed countries this has happened, and Chile is a little behind."

Bellolio credited two factors for the phenomenon: that women working outside of the home were becoming more accepted by society; and that the salary gap between men and women was becoming smaller, although it still existed. This was an incentive for women to get a degree to find higher paying jobs, he said.

Andrés Bernasconi, academic vice rector of the Universidad Andrés Bello, said he believed that another key to understanding the trend was the incorporation of lower-income students into higher education. When access to financial aid was harder, families discriminated in favour of their sons, so there were more men in higher education.
Full report on the MercoPress site