Australia: "Degrees of separation: more women enrolling at universities"

Article here. Excerpt:

'In 2002, of the 151,550 Australian students who graduated from university, 56 per cent were women. By 2012, graduation numbers had increased to nearly 195,000, of whom 60 per cent were female, a ratio likely to be higher again this year.

Although women have often opted for courses such as nursing and teaching, their numerical superiority has invaded the previously typical male domains, extending from the undergraduate through all postgraduate levels. Women now outnumber men from bachelor degrees to the top doctoral peaks, and they are also in the majority in seven of the 10 main subject areas, the exceptions being architecture, engineering and information technology.
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Yet despite their preponderance, the federal government still classes ''women in non-traditional areas'' as an equity group deserving of ongoing efforts to boost their enrollments in the few fields where they are not already in the majority. The gender divide, now firmly established in higher education, starts in school, where girls do better in their tests, do not drop out to the same extent as boys, and apply for university in greater numbers.

Last year the Labor government lifted the limits on how many students each university could enroll, which may have encouraged more girls to apply, including those whose ATAR scores may not have been high enough to gain entry previously, and this is shifting enrollments even more to the females.'