While educational attainment is generally low in Sudan, young women and men who reach the level of tertiary education choose different areas of study. As noted below, occupational segregation has direct implications for the gender wage gap, and for skilled labor this is correlated with the areas of study. In Sudan, there are no significant gender disparities in the graduate programs across the different fields of study (Figure 12). However, a couple of things stand out. Women are not only disproportionately represented in the agricultural sector in the labor force, but they also represent the majority of tertiary education graduates from agriculture programs. This suggests that women’s role in the sector can go far beyond low-skilled labor and they could play an important role in developing the sector. At the same time, while less than a third (28 percent) of the graduates from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs are female, women dominate the share of graduates in information and communication technology (ICT). However, several focus group participants from the qualitative work for this report indicated that certain areas of studies are seen as more—or less—appropriate for women. A female youth from Khartoum who was not working outside the home said, “I am a girl and I want to study art and theater, but my family is fanatical so they don’t accept that a girl study something like that, and they don’t accept to have a girl who can perform anything on the TV.” A working woman, also from Khartoum, said, “Civil engineering is hard on girls, a boy can be better at this specialty.”

**Figure 12. Graduates in tertiary education fields of study, by** **<u>gender, %</u>**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Agriculture 55.1 44.9<br>Information and Communication Technologies 53.8 46.2<br>Humanities and Arts 50.2 49.8<br>Health and Welfare 49.9 50.1<br>Education 49.0 51.0<br>Social Science, Business and Law 48.0 52.0<br>Science 47.7 52.3<br>Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction 46.3 53.7<br>Business, Administration and Law 44.9 55.1<br>Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics... 27.8 72.2<br>0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0<br>Female Male<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source:_ WDI data retrieved May 2020. All data for 2015, except ‘Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction’ and ‘Education’, both datapoints for 2012.

This educational context translates into the current Sudanese labor force in which close to half (45 percent) of those out of the labor force are individuals with no education. This group represents the majority (52 percent) of the employed group. This probably explains why most of those engaged in agriculture have no education. Given that individuals with secondary and above secondary education represent only 26 percent of the labor force, of which 45 percent are unemployed while only 23 are percent employed, it suggests that the market demand is focused on low-skilled and low-paid work (Figure 13). There are stark gender differences: most women who are out of the labor force also appear to have no education (41 percent). The corresponding number for males is only 4 percent. But for all levels of educational attainment, the share of women out of the labor force is consistently higher than for men, 18