A recent story in the Boston Globe addresses the persistent absence of women in fields such as science and engineering. The significant gender gap in these careers is often blamed on science and math classes in schools, apparent differences in aptitude, as well as potentially sexist companies. Although women make up nearly half of those participating in the paid labor market, they hold only a small proportion of careers requiring high-qualifications and receiving high earnings. Women make up only 20% of our country’s engineers, less than 30% of chemists, and only about 25% of those specializing in computing and mathematics.
“Over the past decade and more, scores of conferences, studies, and government hearings have been directed at understanding the gap. It has stayed in the media spotlight thanks in part to the high-profile misstep of then-Harvard president Larry Summers, whose loose comment at a Harvard conference on the topic in 2005 ultimately cost him his job.”
“Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women – highly qualified for the work – stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.”
“One study of information-technology workers found that women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance. Another study followed 5,000 mathematically gifted students and found that qualified women are significantly more likely to avoid physics and the other ‘hard’ sciences in favor of work in medicine and biosciences.”
Comments 4
The Problem With Assuming Exogenous Preferences: Women in Science and Math Edition « A (Budding) Sociologist’s Commonplace Book — May 27, 2008
[...] out, women are still quite underrepresented in the “hard” natural sciences. Via the Contexts Crawler: The significant gender gap in these careers is often blamed on science and math classes in [...]
Umlud — May 27, 2008
Have you seen the response to this over at Scienceblogs? If not, check:
http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2008/05/women_arent_interested_in_engi.php
Milky Floor — August 25, 2021
Thankfully, after 13 years, it has changed for the best, and about 70% of women in developed countries have high earnings.
Balance Blind — August 25, 2021
I'm glad that our society is improving in the social sphere. I know that women became more in demand in the labor market, and it's great. It's a stereotype that women are largely absent in the technical sphere because when I was buying Inverter chargers, a woman managed to tell me everything way better than a man could.