Ireland and Finland Lead the EU in STEM Graduates, and Nowhere Do Women Outnumber Men

Graduates measured against a generation

Eurostat counts the people who complete a tertiary degree in natural sciences, mathematics and statistics, in information and communication technologies, and in engineering, manufacturing and construction, and sets that count against the resident population aged 20 to 29. The result is a rate per 1,000 young adults: how many members of a cohort a country's universities and colleges turn into scientists, engineers and programmers each year.

For the EU in 2024 the rate was 23.0. In a generation of a thousand twenty-somethings, twenty-three graduated in a STEM field that year.

Where the rate is highest

Ireland records 39.8, the highest in the Union and the only Member State above 35. Finland follows at 32.9, France at 28.0, Denmark at 26.5, Austria at 25.5, Spain and Portugal at 24.8, Germany at 24.4 and Slovenia at 23.3. Nine Member States are above the EU figure.

Ireland's figure is flagged by Eurostat as following a definition that differs from the common one, and it is worth reading alongside the denominator: a country that attracts students from abroad graduates them against its own resident population, which raises the rate.

Where it is lowest

Luxembourg records 5.6, Malta 9.7, Cyprus 12.0, Slovakia 13.9 and Hungary 14.4, the five Member States below 15. Latvia at 15.5, Bulgaria at 17.0, Czechia and the Netherlands at 17.1, Lithuania at 17.3 and Belgium at 17.5 come next.

The three lowest are the Union's three smallest Member States, and the explanation is the mirror of Ireland's. Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus send a large share of their students to universities abroad, where their degrees are counted in another country's numerator while they remain in their own country's denominator. The rate measures where degrees are awarded, not where graduates come from or where they go on to work.

Belgium and the Netherlands are a different case: large, well-resourced higher education systems that produce STEM graduates at roughly three quarters of the EU rate.

Men and women

Across the EU, men graduated in STEM fields at 29.7 per 1,000 and women at 15.9. In no Member State is the female rate higher than the male one, and in six the male rate is at least double: Spain, where the two rates are 35.1 and 14.0, Belgium at 24.7 and 10.1, Hungary at 20.0 and 8.5, Austria at 34.9 and 15.4, Germany at 33.3 and 14.7, and Slovakia at 18.4 and 9.1. The ratios are computed here from the published rates.

Greece is the closest to parity: 24.4 among men and 19.2 among women, a male rate 1.27 times the female one. Romania at 1.30, Estonia at 1.37 and Italy at 1.39 are the next closest ratios. In Ireland, Finland and Denmark, which lead the overall ranking, the female rates of 29.5, 23.2 and 19.6 are the three highest in the Union, and the male rates of 49.9, 41.9 and 33.1 are higher still.

Measured in points rather than ratios, the gap is widest where the overall rate is highest, at 21.1 points in Spain, 20.4 in Ireland and 19.5 in Austria, and narrowest where it is lowest, at 3.4 points in Luxembourg and 3.7 in Malta. Spain, Austria and Germany produce many engineers and few of them are women; Greece and Italy produce fewer engineers and the split is closer to even.

What a graduation rate does not measure

The rate counts degrees awarded in a year, not the stock of qualified people in the workforce, and it says nothing about whether graduates stay. A country can educate engineers for its neighbours, as Ireland partly does, or import them, as Luxembourg does. It also treats a short-cycle diploma and a doctorate alike, since both are tertiary degrees.