More female students must take up physical sciences to meet demand in UK technical sectors.
A report by a UK non-profit agency says that UK businesses need more technicians, manufacturing leaders and engineers, and that more women must earn degrees in physical sciences to meet the demand. Target 2030, from the National Centre for Universities and Business in London, notes that just 9.5% of science and engineering professionals in the United Kingdom are women. In 2013, women represented about one-fifth of physics students at pre-university-qualification levels, and the gender gap in the subject is widening. The report notes that women with physical-sciences degrees have higher employability rates than their male counterparts, and calls for a campaign to attract more female students into the higher-education pipeline in physics, maths and related disciplines.
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Equality: Mind the gender gap. Nature 508, 141 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7494-141b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7494-141b