This HEPI report investigates the first-class gender awarding gap at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge for undergraduate degrees. While women represent the majority of students in the UK and in most cases achieve the majority of first-class and ‘good honours’ degrees, the trend is bucked at some institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge.
Though the size of the gaps varies by course, men are more likely to achieve first-class degrees at these institutions. The largest gap this report identifies is found in Classics at Oxford – 29 percentage points in favour of men in the 2021/22 academic year – and Theology at Cambridge with a 43.3 percentage point gap in favour of men in 2023/24. In other words, although 83.3% of men taking Theology at Cambridge received first-class honours, only 40.0% of women made the same grade.
Figure 1 identifies the 10 largest percentage point gaps by course at Oxford and Cambridge using the latest publicly available data.
Source: Cambridge data is from their online Information Hub: https://www.information-hub.admin.cam.ac.uk/university-profile/ug-examination-results/results-course-dashboard.
Oxford data is from their annual Gazette supplement: https://gazette.web.ox.ac.uk/statistical-information-university-oxford. Oxford’s data are only available rounded to the nearest whole number.
Using data, academic research, and interview material, this HEPI report covers the current state of the gender awarding gap at Oxford and Cambridge. The report also analyses the connection to gender equality.
Further significant takeaways from the data include:
- Female students generally outperform men in ‘good honours’ (first class and 2:1) and first-class degree outcomes across the UK higher education sector, except in the Social Sciences, where men outperformed women by 0.9 percentage points in the first-class bracket in 2021/22 (latest available data used).
- Almost all courses at Oxford and Cambridge had a first-class degree awarding gap favouring men in final honours exams in the latest available data (excluding four subjects at Cambridge and two at Oxford).
- The only subjects with mean gaps favouring women were Geography, Human, Social, and Political Sciences, Land Economy, and Psychological and Behavioural Science at Cambridge and Geography and Medical Sciences at Oxford.
- There is a correlation between courses with a low representation of female students and a high gender awarding gap, which is particularly pronounced in certain STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.
- However, there are considerable gaps in subjects even where women are a significant majority, such as English Literature.
The report discusses several causes of the problem in new depth. Reasons which may be contributing towards the awarding gap include:
- Exams: The tendency for final-year examination-based assessment methods to determine the overall grade for undergraduate degrees, which research suggests disadvantages women from reaching the first-class bracket. Women are generally less likely to take risks, are impacted by Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), and are, in some cases, more likely to perform highly in coursework.
- Representation: Many courses with significant awarding gaps have gender imbalances in both the student cohort and the teaching staff. Particularly pronounced in the STEM subjects, the representation problem can have a knock-on effect as role models are important for building confidence and encouraging aspiration.
- The tutorial/supervision system: Oxbridge’s teaching style has been described as combative and confrontational, which is seen to disadvantage certain groups and have a knock-on effect on their exam performance. Female participants in a 2020 study reported their efforts to contribute to discussions were ‘frequently thwarted by the domineering practices of male students’.
In order to begin tackling these problems, the report recommends that:
- Meaningful research with a genuine view to closing the gap should be funded. For too long, the issue of the gender awarding gap at both Oxford and Cambridge has been discussed and researched without the accompaniment of actual change. Universities should empower themselves to experiment with methods of assessing academic progress: the pandemic showed us it is not only possible but can have positive results.
- Institutions should avoid catch-all solutions and implement bold reforms. This means instead of simply extending the timing of an examination by 15 minutes, a genuine overhaul of certain assessment methods needs to be made. The balance of examinations to coursework should be re-evaluated as well as the construction of question papers themselves – such as the scaffolding of questions.
- Reforms should be accompanied by a reconsideration of awarding metrics. The awarding gap is symptomatic of a broader institutional problem in relation to gender equalities. Institutions should ask themselves what it means to achieve a first-class degree in the current academic climate and whether the grading metric they are currently using stands up against the need to offer equal opportunity to all.