Scientists Determine What Hurdles Still Hamper Women's Progress in Science

Blatant bias no longer blocks women from blossoming into scientists and engineers. Yet societal factors still nudge women away from academic science

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For centuries men dominated academic science and engineering. Gender bias once greatly imperiled the progress of any woman inclined to pursue science, technology, engineering or math (STEM). Over the past 40 years, however, society has gradually begun to accept, if not embrace, the notion of the female biologist, mathematician or engineer, and the number of women in science at all levels has increased dramatically. In the early 1970s women received 29 percent of bachelor's degrees and 10 percent of Ph.D.s in STEM. By 2011 women held just over half of STEM bachelor's degrees, about the same as their proportion of high school graduates, and 41 percent of Ph.D.s.

Yet those promising statistics belie two areas of stagnation for women in STEM. First, a marked deficit of women remains in certain disciplines: geoscience, engineering, economics, mathematics, computer science and the physical sciences. Although women outnumber men among college graduates overall, they currently make up only 25 percent of college majors in these math-heavy fields, and their numbers have been dropping since 2002. Once a woman enters one of these fields, however, her progress toward a Ph.D. and a tenure-track job resembles that of her male counterparts. About 10 percent of both men and women with college degrees in math-intensive fields proceed to Ph.D.s, and 35 to 38 percent of those with Ph.D.s receive assistant professor jobs. According to the U.S. National Science Foundation's 2010 Survey of Doctorate Recipients, women make up 30 percent or less of assistant professors and 7 to 18 percent of full professors in these disciplines.

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