@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp18092,
            	author={Ahimbisibwe, Isaac and Altjmed, Adam and Artemov, Georgy and Barrios-Fernandez, Andres and Bizopoulou, Aspasia and Kaila, Martti and Liu, Jin-Tan and Megalokonomou, Rigissa and Montalban, Jose and Neilson, Christopher A. and Sun, Jintao and Otero, Sebastian and Ye, Xiaoyang},
            	title={Pipeline vs. Choice: The Global Gender Gap in STEM Applications},
            	year={2025},
	month={Aug},
            	institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)},
            	address={Bonn},
            	type={IZA Discussion Paper},
            	number={18092},
            	url={https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp18092},
	abstract={Women account for only 35% of global STEM graduates, a share that has remained unchanged for a decade. We use administrative microdata from centralized university admissions in ten systems to deliver the first cross-national decomposition of the STEM gender gap into a pipeline gap (academic preparedness) and a choice gap (first-choice field conditional on eligibility). In deferred-acceptance platforms where eligibility is score-based, we isolate preferences from access. The pipeline gap varies widely, from -19 to +31 percentage points across education systems. By contrast, the choice gap is remarkably stable: high-scoring women are 25 percentage points less likely than men to rank STEM first.},
	keywords={centralized application platforms;STEM gender gap;gender inequality},
            }