FIGURE A2-5 Percentage of females among doctorates employed full-time by discipline, 1995-2003.

SOURCE: National Science Foundation, Survey of Doctorate Recipients, 1995-2003. Tabulated by the NRC.

employment security, and prestige.” An often-used distinction among employment sectors for doctorate holders in S&E is industry, government, and education. Often, education is narrowly defined to encompass doctoral scientists and engineers working at colleges and universities that award at least a two-year degree (NRC, 2001a). In this section, however, education includes K-12. Outside of education, the other employment sectors include industry not-for-profit organizations; self-employed persons; local, state, or federal government; or the U.S. military.

According to previous literature, employed women with doctorates in S&E were more likely to be in academia and less likely to be in industry (NRC, 2001a). This finding was echoed by the NSF, which noted that women were more likely than men to be at 4-year academic institutions and less likely to be in business or industry (NSF, 2007). The authors argued that these differences “primarily stem from differences in occupation. Women are less likely than men to be engineers or physical scientists, which are occupations that tend to be in business or industry” (p. 66). The NSF’s final point, as well as findings from NRC (2001a), suggested that differences in employment sector vary by discipline; that is, men and women in different areas of S&E distribute themselves differently across possible employment sectors.

Table A2-2 and Figure A2-6 examine the distribution of male and female S&E doctorates employed full-time across two employment sectors: Education