Uneven Academic Career Trajectories for Female STEM Baccalaureates in the U.S. 1995 - 2014

• In Event: 1260 - The Many Pathways to STEM

Abstract

Academic careers time is shorter for female STEM baccalaureates than male STEM baccalaureates. To better understand this female advantage, this study suggests the careers trajectories framework for the uneven academic careers time between high school diploma and STEM baccalaureate. Analyzing data of the National Survey of College Graduates of 2017 with multivariate regression models, this study finds that the female advantage in the STEM academic careers time varies not solely by gender but interactively by academic major field of study and other individual demographics such as race and US citizenship status. These multiply intersecting inequalities in the careers time highlight the limitations of the existing leaky pipeline model’s simplistic binary lens, and also indicate the importance of the interactions between STEM fields of study and baccalaureates’ demographical status as predictors of STEM career trajectories.

Author

• Yun Kyung Cho, University of Wisconsin - Madison