Band 9: The chart below shows the different levels of post-school qualifications in Australia and the proportion of men and women who held them in 1999. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The provided chart illustrates various levels of academic qualifications in Australia and the proportion of males and females who held them in 1999.

In general, more men were holding post-school qualifications back in 1999 compared to women except for undergraduate diplomas and bachelor’s degrees.

In detail, a vast majority of males held skilled vocational diplomas, reaching almost 100%, while only a tiny percentage of females held the same qualification, which only took up around 10% of the column. This happened the same in terms of the postgraduate diploma; just a small minority of females possessed the same qualification, but nearly all males had a postgraduate diploma. Although a larger proportion of males were holding master’s degrees, which made up roughly 60% of the graph, the disparity was much smaller; 40% of females also held this qualification.

Conversely, more women had undergraduate diplomas and bachelor’s degrees. For the former, approximately 75% of females obtained the same level of diploma compared to males, who only accounted for 40%. For the latter, 60% of women and about 45% of men were holding it.