India's states are not one story. The share of women among VIDWAN-registered faculty ranges from around 21% in some northern and western states to over 47% in parts of the northeast. That is a 26-point spread, measured at the same point in time, using the same data source.
The variation is not random noise. It maps onto regional patterns that appear consistently across education, labour force participation, and health indicators.
Female faculty share by state, 2025 (selected states)
Source: VIDWAN Expert Database, October 2025 scrape. Processed by STEMTheGap. Only states with ≥500 registered faculty shown. Figures reflect VIDWAN-registered faculty only.
The northeastern states and Kerala consistently lead. Meghalaya, at 47%, has the highest female faculty share of any state with a meaningful VIDWAN sample. This is consistent with broader patterns: Meghalaya is one of the few matrilineal societies in India, and women's workforce participation rates there are historically high across sectors, not just academia.
Kerala at 42% reflects a long-standing investment in women's education going back to the 19th century, and one of the highest female literacy rates in the country. Tamil Nadu's figure of 38% is partly explained by a large number of women's colleges and arts and science colleges that historically served as entry points for women into academia.
At the other end, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — states with lower female labour force participation across most sectors — show the lowest figures in this sample.
A note on what drives these differences. State-level figures in this data mix institution type, discipline composition, and genuine variation in hiring and retention. A state with a high concentration of women's colleges will mechanically show a higher female share. A state where most universities are technical will show a lower figure simply because STEM has lower female representation everywhere. We are working on decomposing these effects — the raw state-level number is a starting point, not a verdict.
There is also a VIDWAN coverage issue that is particularly acute at the state level. State universities vary enormously in how actively they have promoted VIDWAN registration. States where registration has been more systematically pushed by state higher education councils may look better or worse than they actually are, simply because of who is in the database.
What the state variation does clearly establish is that the gender gap in Indian academia is not a uniform national problem. Some states have built systems — whether through policy, culture, or the structure of their higher education sector — where women are represented at substantially higher rates. Understanding what drives those differences is one of the more important questions this data opens up.
All figures are for VIDWAN-registered faculty. Only states with at least 500 registered faculty in the 2025 snapshot are shown. See the documentation for full methodology.