Why Fewer Women From ASEAN Pursue STEM Degrees Abroad and What Is Changing

A gap inside a gap

Across several ASEAN countries, women already make up the majority of university students overall. That pattern does not carry into STEM fields, where enrollment stays skewed toward men, particularly in engineering, computer science and physics. Within that smaller pool of women in STEM, an even smaller share end up studying abroad, where competition for places, cost and family approval add extra filters on top of the ones that already limit STEM entry at home.

The result is a gap inside a gap: fewer women choose STEM to begin with, and fewer of those who do choose it get the chance to study it overseas.

What drives the gap

Family financing decisions

When a household has to choose which child gets support to study abroad, sons are still more often prioritized in many ASEAN families, particularly where the family sees an overseas STEM degree as riskier or less immediately useful for a daughter's expected life path. This is a financing decision more than an ability judgment, and it shows up most clearly in expensive STEM programs like engineering and medicine, where tuition abroad runs higher than in humanities or business.

Safety and independence concerns

Parents across the region often weigh safety differently for daughters living alone overseas, especially in cities or countries perceived as less familiar or less safe. This shows up as tighter restrictions on which destinations a daughter is allowed to apply to, which can rule out strong STEM programs in favor of destinations parents consider safer, even where the academic fit is weaker.

Fewer visible role models

Women considering a STEM path abroad often cannot point to someone from their own school, city or country who has done it before them in their specific field. Without a visible example, the path looks riskier and harder to picture succeeding at, which discourages applications even when grades and interest are strong.

Underrepresentation in outreach and recruitment

University recruitment fairs, STEM competitions and early exposure programs (robotics clubs, coding bootcamps, science olympiads) have historically drawn more boys, partly because they were marketed and staffed that way. Girls who do not get pulled into these early networks miss the informal information and confidence building that often precedes a STEM study-abroad application.

What is closing the gap

• Dedicated scholarship programs for women in STEM (see our companion article) directly fund a path that families might not fund on their own, reducing the financing barrier.

• Mentoring networks connect prospective applicants with women already studying or working in STEM abroad, giving a visible, reachable example.

• University outreach offices increasingly run women-specific STEM open days, campus tours and application workshops aimed at closing the confidence and information gap early.

• National scholarship agencies in several ASEAN countries have widened outreach to schools outside major cities, reaching students, including women, who previously had less access to study-abroad information.

What this means if you are deciding now

If you are a woman from ASEAN weighing a STEM degree abroad, the barriers described here are structural, not a reflection of your fit for the field. Build your case for family support around specifics: named scholarships you qualify for, safety information about your target city, and a realistic budget that shows the degree is financially achievable. Concrete numbers move a financing conversation further than a general request for support does.

Look for a mentor in your target field before you apply, through your school, a national scholarship agency's alumni network, or a university's women in STEM office. A single conversation with someone who has already made the move abroad often does more to make the path feel achievable than any brochure.