Assessing the impact of socio-economic inequities on college enrolment: emerging differences in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

As the United Arab Emirates diversifies its economy towards knowledge-based industries, maximising the participation of the national workforce, particularly women, in the science, engineering and technology fields is of utmost importance. To accomplish this, identifying the factors that lead students to select their degree programme, as well as forming a deeper understanding of societal dynamics in the United Arab Emirates is needed. This paper studies how socio-economic status affects female students' enrolment in science, engineering and technology fields. Using surveys and semi-structured interviews, we find that motivations for entering science, engineering and technology fields differ such that women of higher socio-economic background have greater interest in studying non-science, engineering and technology fields. This is attributed to a confluence of factors related to status attainment, employment expectations, family connections and perceptions of science, engineering and technology fields. It is important that variations in socio-economic status be accounted for when devising policy recommendations to successfully integrate different segments of the society into science, engineering and technology fields.