The United States and other advanced economies face unprecedented challenges in technical areas such as energy, environment, and defense. Solving these challenges requires a diverse, highly educated labor force, with professional expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Contributing to the problem of under-production of STEM professionals in the U.S. is the pronounced gender segregation in some STEM professions, especially in engineering. As a consequence, we have a much smaller population from which to develop the needed engineering expertise. This project seeks to help us understand what causes continued gender segregation in STEM fields.
An earlier study conducted by the PIs surveyed and interviewed a group of men and women for five years, beginning with the first year of their college education. This panel included a disproportionate number of young men and women planning to major in engineering, who had demonstrated exemplary achievement in science and mathematics. Yet, after four years of engineering education, shortly before college graduation and entry into the labor market, a significantly smaller percentage of the women than the men planned to pursue careers in engineering. Analyses showed that more women than men reported lower confidence in their ability to have a career in engineering.
The current project revisits these men and women at the next career stage -- 5 years after their anticipated college graduation, and during their early years in the labor market. At this time, the project will collect data that enables researchers to compare the role of individual (confidence), organizational (workplace-related), and social network factors to explain gender specific career track decisions, especially regarding STEM fields. Methodologically, this study expands a unique longitudinal dataset to explain the critical transition from college and post-graduate training to the professional workforce. The theoretical model used adjudicates among the most important contending explanations for persistent gender stratification in professional employment by testing social psychological theories of causal individual and gender differences, organization-level processes, and social capital theories concerning the efficacy of social networks.
Broader Impacts Findings from this research may help explain patterns of attrition from and persistence in STEM fields, and engineering in particular. This important issue is of interest to private- and public-sector employers, current and future professionals, as well as institutions of higher education. Moreover, persistent gender segregation in STEM could compromise the competitive position of the United States in a global economy. Findings from this study may also contribute to policy developments aimed at improving the nation's scientific competitiveness.
This project follows a cohort of engineering students from 2003 to 2013 to identify the determinants of persistence in the profession, and probabilities for contribution to technological innovation. More specifically, we seek to understand the conditions that explain the significant difference in persistence by men and women, leading to the most gender segregated profession in the US. The United States and other advanced economies face unprecedented challenges in technical areas such as energy, environment, and defense. Solving these challenges requires a diverse, highly educated labor force, with professional expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Contributing to the problem of under-production of STEM professionals in the U.S. is the pronounced gender segregation in some STEM professions, especially engineering. As a consequence, we have a much smaller population from which to develop the needed engineering expertise. This project seeks to help us understand what causes continued gender segregation in STEM fields. Methodologically, this study uses a unique longitudinal dataset to explain the critical transition from college and post-graduate training to the professional workforce. The theoretical model used adjudicates among the most important contending explanations for persistent gender stratification in professional employment by testing social psychological theories of causal individual and gender differences such as values, priorities, and self-assessments, organization-level processes such as work climate, and social capital theories concerning the efficacy of social networks. Findings from this research may help explain patterns of attrition from and persistence in STEM fields, and engineering in particular. This important issue is of interest to private- and public-sector employers, current and future professionals, as well as institutions of higher education. Some findings from year 10 survey: In preparation for upcoming presentations at the Society for Women Engineers and the Gender Summit, we looked at engineers who did/did not participate in internships or engineering jobs during their college years, and whether they continued in engineering later. We found gender differences for engineers who did not have internships, but no gender differences for those with internships. Engineering women who have internships have later persistence outcomes that look like those of engineering men with internships. In contrast, the big gender differences are manifest more among engineering students who did not do internships while in training in college. Related to this, internships have a bigger positive benefit for women’s persistence than for men’s persistence.
