The first Australian universities were established in the 1850s, well before the introduction of
compulsory schooling. However it was not until the twentieth century that growing
industrialisation, technological change and the development of the so-called ‘knowledge
industries’ fed into an increased demand in Australia for better-educated workers. As the
twentieth century progressed, technological change and industrial restructuring saw a shift
from brawn to brain. From the middle of the twentieth century, the introduction of mass
secondary school education and the expansion of the number of universities widened
access. At the same time, subjects offered in higher education increased in scope, and
explicit and implicit labour market discrimination began to be eroded. These factors, together
with a series of supply-side changes, meant that women were more easily able to shift into
investing in the skills in which labour demand was increasing. By 1987, Australian women
were more likely than men to be enrolled at university. These aggregate figures disguise
considerable heterogeneity across fields of study.