More women with non-Western backgrounds attending university

92 percent will take a university education

According to a report from the Integration Ministry, the percentage of young women with non-Western backgrounds not attending university has dropped dramatically over the past decade.

The report (here in Danish) showed that from 2005-2015, the percentage of women with non-Western backgrounds aged 20-24 not attending university fell from 62.7 to 45.7 percent.

“There’s been a huge development over the past 20 years, particularly when it comes to immigrant girls and the female descendants of immigrants,” Vibeke Jørgensen, a senior researcher with the national social welfare research centre SFI, told Metroxpress newspaper.

“Many of them are very driven.”

The report revealed that the percentage of ethnically Danish women of the same age group not attending university also dropped, although not as significantly, from 50.8 to 42.7 percent over the same period.

READ MORE: Denmark gets its first mosque for women

Boys still behind
Immigrant girls have also nearly caught up with their Danish peers in terms of taking an education in general.

Some 92 percent of female immigrants and descendants of immigrants will take an education at some point, compared to 95 percent of ethnically Danish girls.

The boys, however, are still struggling compared to their Danish peers. Only about 80 percent of them take an education at some juncture.





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