Are recent cohorts of women with engineering bachelors less likely to stay in engineering?

Frontiers in Psychology
Shulamit Kahn, Donna K Ginther

Abstract

Women are an increasing percentage of Bachelors in Engineering (BSEs) graduates-rising from 1% in 1970 to 20% in the 2000s-encouraged by increasing K-12 emphasis on attracting girls to STEM and efforts to incorporate engineering and technology into K-12 curricula. Retention of women in STEM and in engineering in particular has been a concern historically. In this paper, we investigate whether this gap has increased because a larger proportion of females entering engineering find themselves ill-matched to this field, or whether the gap has decreased as engineering becomes more accommodating to women. Using 1993-2010 nationally representative NSF SESTAT surveys, we compare cohorts of BSEs at the same early-career stages (from 1-2 to 7-8 years post-bachelors). We find no evidence of a time trend in the gender gap in retention in engineering and a slightly decreasing gender gap in leaving the labor force. We find, as others have, that the majority of the gender retention gap is due to women leaving the labor force entirely and that this exit is highly correlated with child-bearing; yet women with engineering majors are half as likely as all college-educated women to leave the labor market. There are no clear time trends in female B...Continue Reading

References

Jan 1, 2013·Social Forces; a Scientific Medium of Social Study and Interpretation·Jennifer L GlassKatherine M Michelmore
Jul 15, 2015·Psychological Science in the Public Interest : a Journal of the American Psychological Society·Stephen J CeciWendy M Williams

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Citations

Dec 31, 2019·Science & Public Policy·Anne E WinklerMichael T Allison

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Software Mentioned

SESTAT
Stata

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