The bachelor's to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis.

ABSTRACT: For decades, research and public discourse about gender and science have often assumed that women are more likely than men to "leak" from the science pipeline at multiple points after entering college. We used retrospective longitudinal methods to investigate how accurately this "leaky pipeline" metaphor has described the bachelor's to Ph.D. transition in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the U.S. since the 1970s. Among STEM bachelor's degree earners in the 1970s and 1980s, women were less likely than men to later earn a STEM Ph.D. However, this gender difference closed in the 1990s. Qualitatively similar trends were found across STEM disciplines. The leaky pipeline metaphor therefore partially explains historical gender differences in the U.S., but no long

SUBMITTER: Miller DI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4331608 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature