More young women than men: it’s not just Utrecht

Compared to other cities, Utrecht has the smallest percentage of men between 20 and 25 years of age, says Statistics Netherlands: for every hundred women in this age group, there’s only 73 men. In Leiden, it’s 74 men, and Maastricht, 76.

© HOP. Bron: CBS.

But there are cities where the scale tips the other way. “On Terschelling, the number of young women is by far the lowest, with 250 men for every 100 women, followed at some distance by Delft, with 170 men for every 100 women,” Statistics Netherlands writes. That’s caused by the Maritime Institute on Terschelling, and the Technical University Delft, that has far more male students than female ones.

Statistics Netherlands adds that the male to female ratio in Delft has only skewed more the past decade. That’s remarkable, because it’s not caused by TU students: the percentage of women studying at the TU has only grown.

© HOP. Bron: VSNU.

Nationally speaking, there are more men than women in this age group: for every hundred young women, there are 103 young men. But more women than men go to university, and women leave their parental homes at a younger age than men. That explains some of the skewed balances in many cities with a university of university of applied sciences.

Of all universities of applied sciences, Avans and Van Hall Larenstein have the lowest percentage of female students. At the other end of the spectrum are mostly some independent teaching schools, where 80 percent of students is female.

© HOP. Bron: Vereniging Hogescholen.

Tags: gender

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