Women and STEM Disciplines: Beyond the Barriers
By Shirley Malcolm, Daryl E. Chubin, and Eleanor Babco
American Association for the Advancement of Science

Shirley Malcolm		Daryl E. Chubin		Eleanor Babco

If women and minorities participated in the science and engineering workforce proportional to their presence in the general population, there would be no U.S. talent gap and no downward trend in attracting and graduating the "underrepresented majority" in science and engineering, according to Shirley Ann Jackson (2002). While there may be no shortage of science and engineering graduates, there is a shortage of U.S. women and minorities among those graduates.

A History of Underrepresentation
Who participates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)—and who doesn't—reflects much about the field itself. Science and engineering, like all professions, have perpetuated an imperfect labor market (and a depleted talent base) in the US. Cultural biases and expectations skew educational opportunity and under-sample the pool of potential members for the wrong reasons. In the United States, efforts to promote the movement of racial/ethnic minorities, women, and persons with disabilities into science and engineering track directly the civil rights movements of those groups, with accompanying shifts in enrollments and degree production. For example, the movement for women's rights in the US began in the late 1960's and early 1970's. In 1970 women received less than 1% of the 43,000 baccalaureate degrees awarded in engineering. By 1980 women received almost 10% of 59,000, and in 2000 twice that percentage (of 64,000 degrees awarded) (All data from NSF, 2004). This century the percentages have remained virtually level while the numbers continue to increase modestly.

A similar pattern is seen for US racial and ethnic minorities. Why? Because it is possible to produce some increases in participation just by removing the barriers to participation (e.g., eliminating quotas on the number of women in a program of study). However, to produce the next increase requires affirmative behaviors (e.g., actively recruiting women to apply to a program of study). Producing real equity requires systemic changes in the program and policy environments themselves. A shift in the political and social environment away from "rights based arguments," coupled with rigid program structures that hamper systemic approaches to change, have stalled earlier progress.

If merit is invoked as the basis for participation and imbalances exist in the composition of participants, fundamental questions arise about the fairness of the competition: Has merit been compromised by biases institutionalized and perpetuated? Does a self-fulfilling prophecy overtake potential participants who self-select out of careers in the enterprise? Is the very future of the science in jeopardy due to its inability to diversify the talent and contributions needed to advance both solutions and support by the broader society?

US science is now confronted by such questions, perhaps in the most public and empirical way ever, for one simple reason: the US population is at parity by gender. By contrast, gender differences persist in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from early interest to workforce participation (Handelsman, 2005). These trends are long-standing and well-documented for over three generations (see below). While federal approaches to diversity have evolved for over three decades from targeting individuals to a more program-, institution-, and system-wide focus, the need to disrupt trends in the preparation and participation of women in STEM continues.

Dimensions of Participation
It is possible to generalize about gender differences in science and engineering at various junctures of the pathway from career curiosity/interest to the workforce.

Select Indicators of Persistent Gender Differences in Science and Engineering—Interest to Workforce

• Interest in science and engineering majors, as reflected in The American Freshman—2004 survey, shows a continuing imbalance in sex ratios—9:1 male in computer science, 6:1 in engineering, and 1.5:1 in physical sciences. Women's interest outpaces men only in the biological sciences (www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html).
• Five out of six engineering students and nine out of 10 engineering professors are male (www.smith.edu).
• Enrollment in Sloan Foundation-supported Professional Science Master's (PSM) programs (n=97 on 45 campuses) shows near gender parity in environmental/geosciences and chemistry programs, majority women in biology, and majority men in bioinformatics, math, physics, and computer science (www.sciencemasters.org). Overall, PSM reflects the gender imbalance in STEM observed at the BS and PhD levels.
• In academic settings, "women earn less, hold lower-ranking positions, and are less likely to have tenure." At four-year colleges and universities, "only 27% of those awarded tenure are women" (www.aauw.org).
• The American Association for Employment in Education projects "considerable shortages" in physics and mathematics education teachers and "some shortage" in six other science fields (www.aaee.org).
• According to NSF, women represented 23% of the federal science and engineering workforce in 2002, which is less than women's participation in the total U.S. science and engineering workforce (www.cpst.org).
• In contrast to science and engineering, women have nearly reached parity in U.S. medical school enrollment, and account for 30% of all medical school faculty, 17% of tenured faculty, and 10% of all department chairs in 2003 (www.aamc.org).

(CPST Comments, 2005)

In engineering, women have actually been declining as a percentage of freshmen. This fall-off is influenced by the tremendous overall growth in computer engineering, which is largely male (88 percent in 2004). Female engineering freshman over the last three years have also experienced a drop in absolute numbers: 16,896 in 2004 vs. 19,509 in 2001, which was a record high (Engineering Workforce Commission, Engineering & Technology Enrollments, 2004).

A series of graphs speaks to the recent history of participation in STEM. Disaggregation offers compelling evidence of who participates in which fields and in what way.

While women earned more than half of all bachelor's degrees in science and engineering from 2000 onward, when the social and behavioral sciences are removed, women have not reached parity, earning only 40% of total natural sciences and engineering baccalaureate degrees.

A similar story is evident at the doctorate level. Women earned 43% of all the science and engineering doctorates, but only 35% of those in the natural sciences and engineering in 2003.

However, women in the U.S. are doing better than their international colleagues. Only women in the European Union earned a higher proportion of doctorates in the natural sciences and engineering than did U.S. women.

Not surprisingly, women's representation in the STEM workforce mirrors their proportional representation in the educational pipeline, with higher proportions in the social and behavioral sciences, lower proportions in the natural sciences and engineering.

In 2001 women received nearly 60% of biological sciences bachelor's degrees and almost 48% of chemistry bachelor's degrees, that is, they were at or beyond parity. In contrast women received almost 22% of physics bachelor's degrees and 27.6% of those in computer science. Many posit that field differences in women's participation in the sciences reflect issues such as perceived relevance to women's experiences, levels of topical interest, and/or the age of fields and strength of their traditions—older fields are seen as less open.

But the relatively new field of computer science defies such characterization. Women's percent of baccalaureate degrees in computer science reached its peak in 1984 when women were over 37% of total degree recipients. Participation and degree production has been a steady downward slope since that time.

When attempting to determine what happened to prompt the "loss of ground," we learned that the structure of the curriculum (focused more on the "machine" than the problems that it is used to solve), differences in informal educational access and use of computers (more boys than girls have access to and spend free time with computers), and a "nerding" of the program culture and classroom environment all likely contributed.

Intervening—The Role of Technical Assistance
We must remain mindful that there are faces behind the numbers. Each represents a national investment, often expressed through federal dollars. Indeed, policies such as Title IX sanction that those dollars be distributed equitably. At a time when national consciousness has been raised about nurturing women instead of assuming their innate inferiority to men in doing science, we must deploy experts in the knowledge base on students and programs, and implement proven strategies and design principles that mainstream diversity in higher educational settings. Organizationally, AAAS has been at the forefront of national discussions on women's participation in science and engineering for over three decades. A recent Board resolution recounted the AAAS commitment to action (AAAS, 2005).

With the renewed assault on affirmative action, in the wake of the US Supreme Court rulings on the University of Michigan's college and professional school admissions policies, AAAS established in August 2004 a Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity ("Capacity Center"). The problem of underrepresentation, potentially exacerbated by the demographics of the student population, creates common bonds across disciplines and sectors. The AAAS Capacity Center seeks to reinforce those bonds. As a human resource development consulting service, it provides institutions of higher education with assistance in achieving their educational mission in STEM fields.

The Center works to reduce underrepresentation in STEM (women of all racial or ethnic groups, and others from traditionally underrepresented groups), while promoting structural changes that aid the successful entry of graduates into postgraduate study and the technical workforce. The Capacity Center (www.aaascapacity.org) also serves as a national research and technical assistance partner for institutions seeking to strengthen their professional corps (postdocs, faculty, chairs, deans) and improve the overall campus climate.

Changing the Enterprise

As Shirley Malcolm (2004) put it,

There has always been a debate over whether change is more effective if it comes from the top down or the bottom up. The answer is that change must come from both directions—or risk failure . . . Leadership at all levels, therefore, must want the change if it is to be realized, sustained, institutionalized, and recognized as an exemplar for the support of STEM in other educational settings.

In too much of the discussion of participation, there is an implication that the activities to diversify STEM are being offered solely for the underrepresented groups. To the contrary, the disciplines have a major stake in opening up their canons and concepts to new perspectives. The society, the nation, and the planet need the multiplicity of approaches that diverse practitioners bring. No country can long afford to waste more than half of its talent pool.

Shirley M. Malcolm heads Education and Human Resources at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Daryl E. Chubin directs the AAAS Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity, and Eleanor L. Babco is the Executive Director of the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology.

References

American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2005. AAAS Resolution: Board Statement on Women in Science and Engineering, archives.aaas.org/docs/resolutions.php?doc_id=439.

Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. 2005. CPST Comments, 42(3): 2, 17, 20, 22-24, 26, 28.

Handelsman, J., N. Cantor, M. Carnes, D. Denton, E. Fine, B. Grosz, V. Hinshaw, C. Marrett, S. Rosser, D. Shalala, J. Sheridan. 2005. More women in science. Science, 309:1190, www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5738/1190 (subscription required).

Jackson, Shirley Ann. 2002. The Quiet Crisis: Falling Short in Producing American Scientific and Technical Talent. Building Engineering and Science Talent, www.bestworkforce.org/PDFdocs/Quiet_Crisis.pdf (PDF).

Malcolm, Shirley, Daryl Chubin, and Jolene K. Jesse. 2004. Standing Our Ground, www.aaas.org/standingourground.

United States National Science Foundation Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. 2004. Professional Women and Minorities: A Total Human Resources Data Compendium.