The table compares six university departments in Australia in 2011 in terms of the proportions of female students, students whose first language was not English, and those born outside Australia.
Overall, the humanities departments, particularly English and Modern Languages, had significantly higher proportions of female and domestic students, whereas science-related fields were more internationally diverse and male-dominated.
English recorded the highest percentage of female students at 72%, followed closely by Modern Languages at 68%. By contrast, Chemistry and Math had extremely low female representation, at only 15% and 17% respectively, highlighting a clear gender imbalance across disciplines. History and Physics stood between these extremes, with just over half and slightly above half of their students being female.
A different pattern is seen in linguistic background. History had the largest share of students whose first language was not English (45%), while Chemistry and Physics also had comparatively high proportions, at 42% and 38%. English, however, had the lowest figure at just 12%.
A similar trend appears in the percentage of students born overseas. Physics had the most internationally diverse cohort at 56%, followed by Chemistry at 48%. Meanwhile, English again had the smallest proportion of foreign-born students, at only 20%.