Gender Segregation Across the Sciences

• In Event: Factors Influencing Female Participation in STEM Fields: New Insights From Longitudinal Data

Abstract

Efforts at increasing women’s participation in STEM-related fields have lead to substantial increases in women’s engagement in all science-related fields. This has been particularly true in the biological and medical sciences. However, despite substantial increases in women’s participation in engineering and the physical sciences (going from about 2% of the engineering labor force to over 10% since 1975), women are still underrepresented in these fields and in the related college majors. Why?

We will link the current gendered patterns of occupational choices in all STEM-related professions to the Eccles et al. Expectancy Value Theory of Achievement Choices. According to this model, educational and occupational choices are influenced most directly by relative ability self concepts/expectations for success for and the subjective task values of the various options being considered. Social group memberships such as gender are assumed to influence occupational choices through their influence on these basic psychological and motivational beliefs.

Using the Michigan Study in Adolescent and Adult Life Transitions (MSALT, a 25 year longitudinal study), we predicted occupational choices at ages 25-30 from high school vocational values and interests, as well as math and English abilities, ability self concepts (personal senses of efficacy) and subjective task values and family demographics. MSALT represents primarily European-American working and middle class samples living in southeastern Michigan. As is true for this cohort nationally, the females were more likely than the males to go into the biological and medical sciences and vice versa for the engineering and physical sciences. Furthermore, the males had higher math ability self-concepts and interests than did the females and vice versa for English. Finally, the females attached greater importance than males to wanting a job that helps other people. There were no gender differences in math ability but the females earned higher grades in English and had higher academic GPAs.

The gendered STEM-related occupational pattern was explained primarily by the gendered pattern of occupational interests rather than by the gendered patterns of math self efficacy. Of those students who went into scientific fields, students who placed high importance on an occupation that involved helping others were more likely to go into the biological and medical sciences than into the engineering and physical sciences. This was true for both males and females but females were more likely to endorse this value than males. In addition, within females, wanting a family flexible job predicted decreased participation in the engineering and physical sciences and increased participation in the biological and medical sciences. Within males, wanting a job that allows one to work with one’s hands and with machines predicted increased entry into the engineering and physical sciences. Thus, both across the genders and within each gender, selecting the biological and medical sciences over the engineering and physical sciences was predicted by holding more traditionally female occupational values rather than by gender differences in math self efficacy or math competence.

Authors

• Jacquelynne Eccles, University of California - Irvine

• Ming-Te Wang, University of Pittsburgh

• Yi-Miau Tsai, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Meeta Banerjee, Michigan State University