More girls are choosing science and technical subjects at school although they still lag behind boys, according to the latest Emancipation Monitor from the government’s socio-economic policy unit SCP and the central statistics agency CBS.

Since 2007, the number of girls opting for technical courses at havo secondary schools has risen from 15% to 26% and at pre-university vwo secondary schools from 20% to 38%.

Around one in five girls now study technical subjects at vocational or hbo colleges, a slight increase on 2007. However, the number of female students taking technical courses at university has remained the same, at 26%.

According to the SCP, the campaigns aimed at stimulating girls to choose technical subjects seem to have been a success.

However, this increase has not translated into the jobs market and girls who have studied science subjects often choose another sort of job. The SCP says this may be because they can often feel isolated at college and do not want to feel isolated when they go to work.

Other conclusions

The Emancipation Monitor also shows that the number of women in top jobs has grown from 10% in 2011 to 15% in 2013. The number of working women remained the same at 64%.

In addition, the number of men and women who are unemployed is virtually the same (7.8%/7.9%), 53% of women are economically independent, women are slightly more likely to be caring for someone (32%) than men (28%) and they live slightly longer (83 years) than men (79 years) but have become less healthy over the past few years.