Armenia

Armenia Country Gender Assessment119. No barriers appear to keep women from accessing higher education. In fact, youngwomen dominate at the level of master’s studies, making up 68% of the student body. In2012, women accounted for 70.5% of graduates with master’s degrees, but only 23.5% ofstudents in doctorate courses. There were no female graduates with doctorates that year. 161120. Calculating the value of such education to the female population is a challenge.There is a striking disconnect between women’s educational attainment and careerachievements, and specifically in access to top-level and upper management posts andhigh salary jobs. As noted in the previous section, women represent considerably less thanhalf of Armenia’s labor market, but the economically active female population has a higherlevel of educational attainment than the males (56% of women have secondary specializedor postgraduate education, as compared with 48% of men). 162 Despite women’s “highlevels of education and equal capacities for professional productiveness, there is a lack ofopportunities for them to utilize their abilities in the labor market and in society.” 163121. Education choices of women and men. Women’s education choices, which showpatterns of gender segregation, seem to affect their opportunities to use their education inthe working world. In general, at the level of preliminary and middle vocational education,young women are concentrated in traditionally female fields of study such as light industry/manufacturing, teaching, health, and the arts. Young men tend to enter technical fields,particularly construction, transport, machine building, and computer engineering. Thus,the education that women receive may not correlate with labor market demands.122. In higher education, the patterns are similar, with women concentrated in thehumanities and men in technical areas. Table 6 provides data for subjects in which theTable 6:Female and Male Students by Specialization in Higher Education,2012–2013 Academic YearFemale StudentsSpecialization(%)Education and pedagogy 84.6 15.4Social sciences 79.2 20.8Services 73.9 26.1Natural sciences 63.5 36.5Humanities 62.2 37.8Public health 58.2 41.8Transport systems 3.4 96.6Metallurgy, mechanical engineering 10.6 89.47.1 92.9Energy, power machine building, electronicengineeringMale Students(%)Construction and architecture 13.5 86.5Automation and management 16.8 83.2Source: National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia. 2013. Women and Men in Armenia 2013. Yerevan. pp. 84–85.161 Women and Men in Armenia 2013, p. 90.162 Ibid., p. 112.163 Armenia: MDG National Progress Report, p. 40.36