Outcomes and Options: Gender Differences in Exiting the STEM Educational and Career Track

• In Event: 266 - Regular Session. Gender and Work in the Academy

Abstract

Many researchers have investigated the mechanisms causing more women to avoid or leave the STEM pipeline than men, but there is a dearth of information about how options compare for men and women who choose to exit. This study explores this issue through an analysis of data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988 and the American Community Survey (ACS) to examine where men and women who leave the STEM pipeline end up. Ultimately, the data shows that men and women both benefit from persistence in the STEM pipeline in terms of income and job satisfaction, although women reap more of a benefit comparatively. Despite this, the efforts to retain women in the sciences may introduce social drawbacks. Many talented women provide a social benefit when they leave by entering careers related to education and medicine at much higher rates than men whom leave the pipeline. Retaining these women in the sciences may help gender parity in STEM fields, but removing this supply of educators and healthcare providers potentially creates shortfalls in other fields to consider, particularly when few are making a similar call to recruit more men into these occupations.

Author

• Christine Tomlinson, University of California-Irvine