Megatrend Women and Education

Under the Megatrend Globalization we treat the theme "knowledge society".

Education trends of the past 50 years will shift the balance in favour of women over men in the knowledge society of the future.

In the early years of human civilization, muscle power was a quintessential ingredient of social success. Men went out and hunted. Women sat at home and cared for home and children. Men competed against nature and against one another for dominance - women cultivated inter-human relations in confined spaces. Right down to the age of agriculture and in production industries, muscle power was a decisive advantage.

Muscle power is being demanded less and less, because machines can take over the heavy work. Thinking remains the exclusive domain of human spirit. Targeted thinking requires knowledge, in other words, education.

In the past 50 years, women not only caught up with men in their level of education, in many ways they overtook. In 1995 Germans without any form of school graduation were 35% female and 65% male. Graduates of elementary education were 41% female and 59% male. Intermediary school graduates are 52% female and 48% male. High school graduates are also 52% female and 48% male - even though more boys than girls are born. More women than men complete an apprenticeship. Only among university graduates, women are still marginally at a disadvantage (49% against 51%). But here, too, the tendency is upwards, albeit imbalanced depending on the subject. Men still dominate technical courses such as engineering. Women represent more than half of social sciences, humanities and medicine.