Bi-regional cooperation between Latin America and the European Union: Progress in joint initiatives to reduce the gender gap in STEM careers

Two regions with gender gaps

The STEM gap (Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) refers to the inequality in access to this type of university degree faced by women. According to the 2024 report by the NGO Chicas en Tecnología (CeT), in Latin America female participation in these university degrees ranges between 29% and 43%, depending on the country. Uruguay leads the ranking with a participation rate of 42.6%, five points higher than Argentina. At the other end of the scale, Peru and Chile show the lowest participation rates, at 28.9% and 29% respectively. However, when looking specifically at women in programming degrees, no country exceeds 23%, revealing an even sharper underrepresentation in these specific technical fields.

While in some STEM disciplines such as Natural Sciences female participation exceeds 50%, in the three specific technology categories -STEM-ICT, programming and technological development- a persistent and widespread gender gap is observed across the region. Another finding is the variation in female participation according to specificities within certain careers or fields of knowledge that present important internal differences. University programs in technological development, which include biotechnology components, show higher female participation than programs specifically focused on programming.

The gender gap in STEM disciplines grows and becomes more pronounced in programming and technological development careers in Latin America (CeT, 2024) when looking at certain specific indicators. The graduation rate of women in ICT careers in Latin America is 25% (MetaRed TIC & ANUIES, 2024). In recent years, there has been a decline in the graduation of women in Ibero-America, falling from 25% in 2013 to 19% in 2022 (OEI & UNESCO, 2024).

Countries where public university education predominates are the only ones that exceed the 20% threshold of female participation in programming careers. Uruguay (with 92% of university enrollment in the public education system), Argentina (with 81% of enrollment in the public education system) and Mexico (with 56.2% of enrollment in the public education system) register participation rates of 20.1%, 20.3% and 22.6% respectively. In contrast, countries with predominantly private systems show substantially lower participation: Chile, with only 27.2% public enrollment, records female participation of 11.1%, while Peru, with 24.2% public education, reaches 13.5%. Colombia, with a more balanced system (45.5% public), shows an intermediate participation of 16.8% (Cet, 2024). This distribution suggests that the predominance of public education could be a relevant factor in overcoming the 20% barrier of female participation in programming careers.

Crossing the Atlantic, according to Eurostat, women accounted for 33.5% of STEM graduates in the EU in 2023, that is, approximately one in every three people graduating in natural sciences, ICT and engineering. The continental average hides notable national differences. Among all men graduating from tertiary education in the EU, 40.3% come from STEM careers; for women, that figure drops to just 16.4% (UNECE, 2026). The exceptions in 2024 are Iceland, which leads the list with 43.3%, followed by Romania (41.7%), Greece (41.7%) and Estonia (41.5%). Poland (39%), Italy (39.5%) and Croatia (38.1%) are also well above the average.

These data challenge a widespread belief, shared in both regions: that women naturally avoid technical fields. If some countries can achieve near-total parity in STEM education, then the gender gap is not inevitable, but rather is determined by national contexts, incentives and opportunities.

The European Union seeks to expand its workforce in programming, artificial intelligence (AI) and the digital sector. But gender balance in the technology sector does not happen automatically. It depends on how education systems connect with real economic opportunities. Countries where STEM is seen as a reliable path to employment appear to attract more women into technical fields. This suggests that improving job prospects, visibility and career paths in the technology sector could be as important as changing classroom experiences.

Bi-regional agendas for reducing the gaps

The bi-regional agenda between Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the European Union (EU) aims to reduce the gender gap in these degree programs and in vocational training, and has been strengthened in recent years. The EU funds several implementation and research projects on this topic in LAC.

It should be noted that a cooperation ecosystem between the EU and LAC is currently being consolidated. To analyze this cooperation, a typology is proposed that considers the different forms that exist: 1) cooperation between the EU and LAC universities, 2) alliances between the EU and national private companies in LAC and multinationals, 3) cooperation between the EU and LAC civil society organizations, and 4) cooperation or alliances between international organizations (UNESCO, OEI, among others) and local governments. Several initiatives are presented below based on the typology outlined. Although this list is not exhaustive, it shows the progress being made in bi-regional cooperation on this topic.

First, within the first typology, we can mention the W-STEM Project (2019-2022), which remains active. It is the largest regional project funded by the EU. The project Building the future of Latin America: engaging women into STEM (W-STEM) aimed to improve the strategies and mechanisms for attracting, providing access to and guiding women in higher STEM education programs in Latin America. It had 15 partners from 10 countries: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Participating Latin American universities include the University of Chile, the Monterrey Institute of Technology (Mexico), the University of Costa Rica, the Universidad del Norte (Colombia) and the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (Ecuador), among others. The resulting network is made up of 15 higher education institutions, and others can join as collaborators to establish synergies and joint actions.

Also within this typology, another more recent (2025) cooperation initiative is MakerWomenSTEM, led by the Monterrey Institute of Technology and funded by the EU through the Erasmus+ program, connecting institutions in Europe and Latin America to boost women's access to STEM careers. The project will be implemented in Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador, benefiting more than 500 women in its first stage. Also within this type, it is worth mentioning the UNESCO Regional Chair on Women, Science and Technology, with the participation of FLACSO Argentina on behalf of Latin America, which leads the regional dissemination of progress on the ACT project —funded by the European Union— and systematizes information on gender equality plans in higher education and research institutions. This case is particular in that it acts as the Latin American node of an EU-UNESCO project.

Regarding the second typology, we find the SAGA Project (STEM -Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics- and Gender Advancement). Led by UNESCO, it aims to reduce the gender gap in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in all countries, at all levels of education and research. The Project has the support of the Government of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and seeks to provide governments and policymakers with a variety of tools to help reduce the global gender gap in the STEM field, using two strategies: an assessment of the policies affecting gender balance in STEM, and the use of a set of indicators related to science, technology and innovation (STI) policies, in order to enable evidence-based policymaking.

Regarding the third typology, also in Argentina, the EU co-finances, together with Fundación Cimientos and Enseñá por Argentina, the activity of Chicas en Tecnología (CeT), a long-standing civil society organization (2015) that carries out various activities to promote STEM careers among women, such as developing a program that fosters the development and training of young people in STEM areas, supporting more than 3,000 young people.

Within the fourth typology, we find initiatives such as those of the Organization of Ibero-American States, which, through its specific line on science and technology indicators and higher education data in Ibero-America, builds a bi-regional but steady agenda around this topic. Its particularity is that it involves European resources, but also resources from Latin American and Caribbean countries, sustaining measurements, studies and a specific agenda of activities on women and science. 

In conclusion, the data show that challenges to reducing the gender gap still persist, making it necessary to sustain the agenda and review it through studies and research that promote new programs and initiatives or the consolidation of existing ones.

Although there are already consolidated channels of cooperation between the two regions, European funding predominates, in addition to each country's national funding, but in light of new national scenarios, such as far-right governments that question gender policies, a question arises as to how to sustain a bi-regional agenda that requires high-level state support.

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Lucila Dallaglio is PhD in Social Sciences from the Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Master's in Public Policy from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, and Bachelor's in Political Science from the Universidad Católica de Córdoba. She is a researcher with the Study Group on Citizenship, Educational Transition and Coexistence (GECITEC), part of PLYSE, the Education Area of FLACSO Argentina, and a former CONICET postdoctoral fellow based at IICSAL. She has taken part in national (PICT) and regional research projects on educational trajectories, citizenship, digital culture and contemporary mobilities

The opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of the EULAS Network.