Norway's gender gap in education widens

Norway's gender gap in education is widening as in many Norwegian municipalities the proportion of highly educated women is more than twice as large as that of men, the country's statistics bureau said on Tuesday.

For both men and women, there has been a steady increase in the proportion with higher education in recent years, according to Statistics Norway's Indicators for gender equality.

However, statistics show that the gender disparity is steadily increasing in women's favour in the period from 2008 to 2017. In 2017, women had a higher level of education than men in all the country's 426 municipalities.

The gender disparity in education is especially great in the three northernmost counties. Of the 20 municipalities where the gender disparity is the greatest, 14 municipalities lie in Nordland, Troms or Finnmark, and 8 of the 14 are Finnmark municipalities.

The gender disparity in education is the lowest in Oslo and Akershus and in the big cities. However, women's level of education also increases in relation to men's in these areas, the bureau said.