Female Student Enrollment Trends in STEM Undergraduate Programs at PUCP: A Case Study

Bearing in mind the low participation of female students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs in Peru, an action plan is needed. To this end, a reliable database is required to understand the behavior of young Peruvians in higher education. This article presents an analysis of student enrollment, both male and female, in public and private universities in Peru. Special emphasis is placed on the 12 engineering programs and 4 science programs at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), examining not only enrollment, but also applications and dropout rates. The results show that traditional programs such as mechanical, mining, electronic, and computer engineering are more attractive to men than to women. The same trend is observed for physics and mathematics programs. Meanwhile, industrial, biomedical, and geological engineering programs show equal interest to both men and women. Finally, chemistry, chemical engineering, and environmental engineering emerge as the programs most appealing to women.