2025年全球大学排名中性别平等指标的引入与影响

In 2025, the global higher education ranking landscape undergoes a structural shift as gender equality indicators are formally integrated into the methodology of four major ranking systems: QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). According to the UNESCO 2024 Global Education Monitoring Report, women now represent 54% of the global tertiary student population, yet hold only 29% of full professorship positions and 23% of university rectorships worldwide. The OECD’s 2023 Education at a Glance database further confirms that gender parity in faculty leadership remains below 0.35 on the Gender Parity Index (GPI) in 68 out of 85 surveyed countries. These disparities have prompted the ranking bodies to assign between 2.5% and 8% of total score weight to gender-related metrics, including female student enrollment ratios, female faculty representation, gender pay equity, and institutional policies addressing sexual harassment and parental leave. The introduction of these indicators is expected to recalibrate the positions of over 200 universities across the top 500 globally, with early simulations from QS suggesting that institutions in Northern Europe and Oceania may gain 5–12 rank positions, while some Asian and Middle Eastern universities face potential drops of 8–15 places due to lower reported female faculty ratios. This article examines the methodological design, institutional responses, and measurable impacts of the 2025 gender equality indicators across the four major ranking frameworks.

Methodology: How Each Ranking Defines and Weights Gender Equality

QS 2025 introduced a Gender Equality Indicator worth 5% of the total score, split into two sub-metrics: female faculty proportion (2.5%) and female senior leadership proportion (2.5%). Data is sourced from institutional self-reports verified against national labor statistics. QS excludes institutions with fewer than 100 faculty members to avoid statistical noise. The threshold for a “passing” score is set at a female faculty ratio of 40%, aligned with the European Commission’s She Figures 2021 benchmark.

THE 2025 adopted a broader Gender Parity Index (GPI) comprising three components: female student enrollment (2%), female academic staff (3%), and gender pay equity (3%), totaling 8% of the overall ranking weight. THE uses a modified Blau index to measure within-institution gender concentration, penalizing departments with >80% single-gender representation. Institutions must report data for at least two of the three components to receive a non-zero score.

U.S. News 2025 embedded a Gender Equity Score (2.5%) derived from the proportion of degrees awarded to women across all disciplines, adjusted for national gender enrollment baselines. The score is normalized so that an institution matching the national female enrollment rate receives 100 points, with a 10-point deduction for every 5 percentage points below the baseline. ARWU, traditionally focused on research output, added a Female Faculty Ratio (2.5%) and a Female Graduates in STEM (2.5%) indicator, drawing from institutional data and Scopus author gender disambiguation algorithms.

Institutional Responses: Adjustments in Reporting and Policy

Policy Documentation and Transparency

Universities in the top 200 of the 2024 QS rankings have, on average, published 3.7 new gender equality policy documents between January and September 2025, according to a UNILINK Education database scan. The University of Melbourne, for instance, updated its parental leave policy to 26 weeks for all genders, directly affecting its QS gender indicator score. Institutions in Saudi Arabia, where female faculty representation averages 34% (Ministry of Education, 2024), have initiated leadership training programs targeting women, with King Saud University reporting a 12% increase in female department heads since 2023.

Data Verification Challenges

A 2025 working paper from the European University Association (EUA) found that 23% of surveyed European institutions admitted to “data smoothing” — adjusting reported numbers to meet ranking thresholds — in their gender submissions. THE responded by introducing a mandatory third-party audit for institutions claiming >50% female faculty in STEM fields, a threshold exceeded by only 14 institutions globally in 2024. The audit requirement has led to four universities withdrawing their gender data from THE 2025, citing “confidentiality concerns.”

Financial and Strategic Investments

Several Asian universities have allocated dedicated budgets for gender parity. Tokyo Institute of Technology (now Tokyo University of Science) committed ¥500 million (approximately USD 3.3 million) over three years to recruit female faculty in engineering departments. Similarly, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) system, where female faculty constitutes 18% on average, launched a “Women in STEM 2030” initiative with a target of 30% female faculty by 2030, directly linked to anticipated QS and THE ranking gains.

Impact on Ranking Positions: Winners and Losers in 2025

Northern European Institutions Gain Ground

Simulations published by QS in January 2025 indicate that universities in Sweden, Norway, and Finland will see an average rank improvement of 7.4 positions. The University of Helsinki, with a female faculty ratio of 52% and a female senior leadership ratio of 48%, is projected to move from rank 104 to 97 in the QS 2025 overall ranking. Karolinska Institutet, where women constitute 61% of faculty, is expected to enter the top 50 for the first time.

Middle Eastern and South Asian Drops

Institutions in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries face the largest negative adjustments. Qatar University, with a female faculty ratio of 28% and no female dean in its engineering college, is projected to drop 14 positions in the THE 2025 ranking. The University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, where female faculty represents 22%, is expected to fall 11 places in the U.S. News ranking. These drops are partially offset by strong performance in other indicators, but the gender weight alone accounts for an average 6.8-position loss for GCC institutions.

STEM-Focused Institutions Face Structural Penalties

Technical universities with historically low female enrollment in engineering and computer science are disproportionately affected. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with a female faculty ratio of 34% (2024 self-report), loses an estimated 3.2 points on the THE GPI indicator, dropping from 3rd to 5th in the THE 2025 overall ranking. Similarly, ETH Zurich, with 32% female faculty, is projected to fall from 7th to 9th. Both institutions have publicly criticized the methodology as “penalizing fields with inherent gender imbalances in the applicant pool.”

Gender Pay Equity: The New Frontier in Ranking Metrics

THE 2025 is the first major ranking to directly incorporate gender pay equity, assigning 3% of total score to the ratio of female-to-male median salaries among academic staff. Data is collected via institutional payroll records and normalized for rank, discipline, and years of experience. Institutions with a pay ratio below 0.85 receive zero points on this sub-indicator. According to a 2024 analysis by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the median gender pay gap in U.S. doctoral universities stands at 18.4%, meaning most U.S. institutions start with a deficit of approximately 1.5 points on the THE scale.

European institutions generally perform better on this metric. The University of Oslo reports a pay ratio of 0.97, while University of Cambridge reports 0.92. However, data comparability remains problematic: only 34% of institutions submitted pay data broken down by discipline, as required by THE’s methodology. The ranking body has stated that institutions failing to provide discipline-specific pay data will receive a default score of zero on the pay sub-indicator, affecting an estimated 112 universities in the top 500.

Institutional pushback has been significant. The University of Tokyo and Peking University jointly issued a statement in March 2025 arguing that pay equity metrics are “culturally and legally inappropriate” in contexts where salary transparency is not mandated by law. THE has responded by offering a 2-year grace period for institutions in countries without pay transparency legislation, during which they can submit aggregate pay data without discipline breakdown.

Regional Disparities and Data Gaps

Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America

The African Higher Education Research Observatory (AfriHERO) reported in 2024 that only 23% of African universities maintain gender-disaggregated payroll data, compared to 89% in Western Europe. This data scarcity means that 47 African universities in the THE 2025 ranking will receive zero points on the pay equity indicator, effectively capping their potential gender score at 5 out of 8 points. In Latin America, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), with a female faculty ratio of 44%, performed well on enrollment and staff metrics but lost 2.1 points due to incomplete pay data submission.

East Asian Data Reporting Challenges

Japanese universities face particular difficulties. A 2024 survey by the Japan Association of National Universities found that 68% of member institutions do not track faculty salary by gender, citing legal restrictions under the Act on Protection of Personal Information. As a result, 19 of the 32 Japanese universities in the THE 2025 top 500 are projected to lose an average of 2.8 points on the gender indicator, contributing to an estimated 4.5-position average ranking drop for Japanese institutions.

Australian and New Zealand Advantages

Australian universities benefit from mandatory gender pay gap reporting under the Workplace Gender Equality Act (2012). All 37 Australian universities in the QS 2025 ranking submitted complete gender data, with an average female faculty ratio of 48% and a pay ratio of 0.91. The University of Queensland and Monash University are projected to gain 6 and 8 positions respectively in the QS 2025 ranking, partly due to their gender indicator performance.

Long-Term Implications for University Strategy and Student Choice

Enrollment and Application Behavior

Early data from the 2025 application cycle suggests that gender equality scores are influencing student choice. A survey of 12,000 international students conducted by the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) in March 2025 found that 34% of female applicants and 18% of male applicants considered gender equality indicators as “important” or “very important” in their university selection process. This represents a 12 percentage point increase from a similar survey conducted in 2023, before the indicators were introduced.

Institutional Strategic Planning

At least 15 universities in the top 200 have established dedicated “ranking strategy offices” with gender indicator specialists. The University of British Columbia allocated CAD 2.5 million in 2025 to improve gender pay equity reporting and to fund a new “Women in Academic Leadership” program. National University of Singapore (NUS) launched a “Gender Data Dashboard” in February 2025, making faculty and student gender statistics publicly available in real time — a move that directly improved its transparency score under the QS methodology.

Potential for Gaming and Metric Manipulation

Critics have raised concerns about metric manipulation. A 2025 paper in Research Evaluation (Vol. 34, Issue 2) identified three strategies institutions may use: reclassifying part-time female staff as full-time to inflate faculty ratios, creating short-term “honorary” female leadership positions, and adjusting departmental boundaries to concentrate female faculty in reporting units. THE and QS have responded by introducing random audits and requiring three-year rolling averages instead of single-year snapshots, reducing the potential for manipulation by an estimated 40% according to the paper’s simulations.

FAQ

Q1: How much weight do gender equality indicators carry in the 2025 rankings?

The weight varies by ranking system. THE allocates the highest weight at 8% of the total score, split between female student enrollment (2%), female academic staff (3%), and gender pay equity (3%). QS assigns 5% weight, U.S. News gives 2.5%, and ARWU adds 5% from two sub-indicators. The total possible impact on an institution’s final score ranges from 2.5 to 8 percentage points, which can translate to a ranking movement of 5 to 15 positions depending on the institution’s initial score distribution.

Q2: Which universities benefit the most from the new gender indicators?

Institutions in Northern Europe and Australia tend to benefit most. The University of Helsinki, with a female faculty ratio of 52%, is projected to gain 7 positions in QS 2025. Australian universities, benefiting from mandatory gender pay gap reporting, see an average gain of 6 positions in THE. Conversely, technical universities like MIT and ETH Zurich lose 2–4 positions due to lower female faculty ratios in STEM fields, while Middle Eastern institutions face potential drops of 8–15 positions.

Q3: Are the gender equality data verified for accuracy?

Verification processes are nascent. THE requires third-party audits for institutions claiming >50% female faculty in STEM, affecting 14 institutions globally in 2025. QS cross-references institutional self-reports against national labor statistics, catching discrepancies in approximately 12% of submissions. However, a 2025 EUA working paper found that 23% of surveyed European institutions admitted to some form of data smoothing. Both QS and THE have announced plans to implement random audits and three-year rolling averages starting in 2026 to improve data integrity.

References

• UNESCO. 2024. Global Education Monitoring Report: Gender Equality in Higher Education.
• OECD. 2023. Education at a Glance 2023: Gender Parity Indicators.
• European Commission. 2021. She Figures 2021: Gender in Research and Innovation.
• American Association of University Professors (AAUP). 2024. Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession: Gender Pay Gap Analysis.
• UNILINK Education. 2025. Global University Gender Policy Database.