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

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” met...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Miller, David I., Wai, Jonathan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331608/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25741293
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037
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author Miller, David I.
Wai, Jonathan
author_facet Miller, David I.
Wai, Jonathan
author_sort Miller, David I.
collection PubMed
description 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 longer describes current gender differences in the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in STEM. The results help constrain theories about women’s underrepresentation in STEM. Overall, these results point to the need to understand gender differences at the bachelor’s level and below to understand women’s representation in STEM at the Ph.D. level and above. Consistent with trends at the bachelor’s level, women’s representation at the Ph.D. level has been recently declining for the first time in over 40 years.
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spelling pubmed-43316082015-03-04 The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis Miller, David I. Wai, Jonathan Front Psychol Psychology 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 longer describes current gender differences in the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in STEM. The results help constrain theories about women’s underrepresentation in STEM. Overall, these results point to the need to understand gender differences at the bachelor’s level and below to understand women’s representation in STEM at the Ph.D. level and above. Consistent with trends at the bachelor’s level, women’s representation at the Ph.D. level has been recently declining for the first time in over 40 years. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-02-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4331608/ /pubmed/25741293 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037 Text en Copyright © 2015 Miller and Wai. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Miller, David I.
Wai, Jonathan
The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis
title The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis
title_full The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis
title_fullStr The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis
title_full_unstemmed The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis
title_short The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis
title_sort bachelor’s to ph.d. stem pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331608/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25741293
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037
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