TY - JOUR
T1 - The missing women in STEM? Assessing gender differentials in the factors associated with transition to first jobs
AU - Sassler, Sharon
AU - Glass, Jennifer
AU - Levitte, Yael
AU - Michelmore, Katherine M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by Grant Number 5R01NR011988-02 awarded to Cornell University from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NIH), Grant Number 5R24HD042849 awarded to the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and Grant R305B110001 from The Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Women remain underrepresented in the STEM workforce. We assess explanations for women's underrepresentation in STEM jobs, focusing on a cohort that came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, when women dramatically increased their representation in the scientific labor force. Data are from the NLSY79, and our analysis focuses on members of this cohort who received a college degree, with an emphasis on those who completed a degree in a STEM field. Our analyses test the extent to which college major, expectations to work in STEM, and family expectations shaped transitions into STEM occupations within two years of degree completion. Among those majoring in STEM fields there were no gender differences in transitioning into STEM jobs, though there were sizable differences in transitions to STEM employment by field of study. Of note are gender differences in associations between family expectations and transitions into STEM employment. The most career oriented women, who expected to marry late and limit fertility, were no more likely to enter STEM jobs than were women who anticipated marrying young and having two or more children. The men most likely to enter STEM occupations, in contrast, adhered to significantly more conventional gender ideologies than their female counterparts, expecting to marry at younger ages but also to remain childless. Results of our regression decomposition indicated that marriage and family expectations and gender ideology worked in opposite directions for men and women. Nonetheless, the majority of the gender disparity in transitions into STEM jobs was related to women's underrepresentation in engineering and computer science fields of study.
AB - Women remain underrepresented in the STEM workforce. We assess explanations for women's underrepresentation in STEM jobs, focusing on a cohort that came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, when women dramatically increased their representation in the scientific labor force. Data are from the NLSY79, and our analysis focuses on members of this cohort who received a college degree, with an emphasis on those who completed a degree in a STEM field. Our analyses test the extent to which college major, expectations to work in STEM, and family expectations shaped transitions into STEM occupations within two years of degree completion. Among those majoring in STEM fields there were no gender differences in transitioning into STEM jobs, though there were sizable differences in transitions to STEM employment by field of study. Of note are gender differences in associations between family expectations and transitions into STEM employment. The most career oriented women, who expected to marry late and limit fertility, were no more likely to enter STEM jobs than were women who anticipated marrying young and having two or more children. The men most likely to enter STEM occupations, in contrast, adhered to significantly more conventional gender ideologies than their female counterparts, expecting to marry at younger ages but also to remain childless. Results of our regression decomposition indicated that marriage and family expectations and gender ideology worked in opposite directions for men and women. Nonetheless, the majority of the gender disparity in transitions into STEM jobs was related to women's underrepresentation in engineering and computer science fields of study.
KW - Employment
KW - Expectations
KW - Family and work
KW - Gender
KW - Intentions
KW - STEM
KW - Values
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.09.014
DO - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.09.014
M3 - Article
C2 - 28202143
AN - SCOPUS:85006164583
SN - 0049-089X
VL - 63
SP - 192
EP - 208
JO - Social Science Research
JF - Social Science Research
ER -