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Studies Show

Women Account For Just 14% Of Engineers In The U.S.

2:40 pm, May 7th | by Amy Tennery


We all know women lag behind men in their participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers. And there’s no shortage of data to show that even the science-enthused young girls often ditch their STEM dreams by college.

So consider this your latest reminder: Women are still getting psyched out of the high-paying STEM field.

In the last decade, women have accounted for around 60 percent of bachelors degrees holders, according to National Center For Education Statistics compiled by the Green Bay Press Gazette. Yay for women — the problem, of course, is that we’re not really branching out in our studies. And this has overarching consequences for women and the U.S. economy. With women on track to take up a larger and larger portion of the degree holders, our participation in STEM is key — if we’d like the U.S. to remain competitive in science and technology, that is.

Women now account for just 14 percent of engineers and 27 percent of computer science and math pros, according to Congressional Joint Economic Committee data. And, as Lockheed Martin’s President of Information Systems Stephanie Hill pointed out in a recent piece for the Washington Post, part of this has to do with a perception problem:

[There are] many reasons why young women shy away from engineering as a career, including a lack of female engineering role models, having little knowledge of the solution-oriented work of engineers, and misconceptions about engineering being a “solitary” profession… Industry must step up its role in attracting young women to this exciting career where they can truly make a difference in people’s daily lives.

Is a top-to-bottom STEM shift necessary to mobilize women? It would seem that way.

TAGS:

  • Anonymous

     It’s articles like this that depress me because THIS is the reason why the wage gap is so huge and this stigma needs to be fought so woman have more confidence to enter these fields. Unfortunately,  charlatans like Rachel Maddow continue to push the myth that men are continuing to oppress woman so the real problem will never be solved.

  • Anonymous

    ⇪⇪⇪like Linda responded I am in shock that anyone able to get paid $5486 in four weeks on the internet. have you seen this page⇮↺

  • Sarah Nicolas

    I am a Mechanical Engineer and I can tell you another reason we leave the Engineering field, especially in the South: We’re treated like crap, like second-class citizens. I have to demand respect and insist that people listen to me every single day, while my male coworkers get those things automatically. It’s exhausting. Oh and when we get upset about it? We’re PMSing.

    My old boss used to make “jokes” all the time about my wardrobe and romantic relationships and such. When my mentor’s boss complained to our Department head based on things he had overheard, I was brought into his office and told I was overreacting (Notice: I didn’t actually “react” at all). This was my boss’s third complaint of this type, but he was golf buddies with the department head.

    When I was in Engineering school, I was frequently told by faculty that I didn’t belong in the major because I was a girl, that they were surprised I did so well on such-and-such test because I was a girl. My friend, who had platinum blonde hair, was told “that hair color doesn’t belong in this building” when we were walking through the Aerospace Engineering building.

    Not everybody feels this way, but enough do to make the environment hostile.

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