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The number of doctoral students at German universities reached a new high in 2022 with a total of 205,300 people. This means an increase of 2% compared to the previous year, as the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced today. The data also show a notable gender distribution as well as interesting trends across disciplines.
The doctoral landscape in Germany reflects a balanced gender distribution. The proportion of women among doctoral students remained stable at 48% (98,400 people), while the proportion of men was 52% (106,900 people). The age structure of the doctoral students also showed differences: the average age was 30.3 years, with male doctoral students at 30.7 years being almost a year older than their female colleagues at 29.9 years. The proportion of foreign doctoral candidates is also impressive, at 23% (48,100 people).
Within the departments, the subject group human medicine/health sciences is the largest group with a share of 26% (54,000 people). This is followed by mathematics and natural sciences with 23% (47,200 people), engineering with 18% (37,600 people) and law, economics and social sciences with 16% (33,600 people).
The gender-specific distribution varied significantly depending on the department. In engineering, for example, around 78% of doctoral students were men, while in the subject group art, art science 66% were women. In terms of absolute numbers, men dominated engineering with 29,200 doctoral students, while women dominated with 33,300 doctoral students in the human medicine/health sciences subject group.
A look at the number of beginners shows that 16% (33,100 people) of doctoral students in 2022 were enrolled at a German university for the first time. This represents a decrease of 9% compared to 2021. The average age of the first doctoral students was 26.9 years, with male beginners at 27.2 years being slightly older than females at 26.6 years. Around 27% (8,800 people) of first-time doctoral students were foreign nationals.
Interestingly, PhD activity was concentrated in just four universities, which together hosted 16% of PhD students. At the top of this list were the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, each with 8,900 doctoral students, followed by the Technical University of Munich (8,500) and the Technical University of Aachen (7,300). The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn (6,500) and the Technical University of Dresden (6,400) also recorded significant doctoral activity.
This data comes from the doctoral statistics, which has been in operation since 2017 and records all ongoing doctoral projects at German universities. Since the statistics were still under construction before 2020, no comparable data is available for previous years.