Gendered study progress in Flemish academic bachelor programmes

In Flanders (Belgium), less than half the students enrolling in university succeed. Previous research has linked this to students’ gender, socio-economic, migration, and socio-cultural background. However, most Flemish studies focus on study success in the first year of university. Additionally, the research investigates the effects of socio-demographic and educational background of students, but in an additive way without much attention to the intersections of different axes of diversity. In this exploratory study, we want to investigate the relationship between student gender and students’ representation and study progress in academic bachelor programmes and to what extent the gender effect is homogeneous or divergent for different subpopulations of students. We use data from the Flemish Database Higher Education. Findings indicate, firstly, that the humanities show less gender segregation and more social diversity in general than the fields of STEM (sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics) and medicine. Secondly, in general, men tend to take more time to complete the bachelor programme except for middle class students where women are more at risk for study delay.