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CHAPTER 5 DOCTORAL WOMEN IN INDUSTRY A previous report of this Committee examined the comparative status of men and women Ph.D.s employed in industry, basing its findings on 1977 data.) In the following section, we reanalyze the industrial science and engineering employment patterns as of 1981. Increase in employment of female Ph.D.s . . . In just four years, the number of doctoral women in the business and industry sector doubled--increasing from 1,700 to 3,500 between 1977 and 1981. Growth during the previous 4-year period was at nearly the same rate. Despite these increases, women scientists and engineers represent only 5 percent of all Ph.D.-level personnel in industry (Table 5.1~. The fields with the largest numbers of total Ph.D. employment--engineering and chemistry--have relatively few women, 1 percent and 4 percent, respectively. In several fields, the proportion of women among industrial scientists is lower than their presence in the Ph.D. work force. As mentioned earlier, women are 4 percent of the doctoral chemists employed in industry, but 7 percent of those in all sectors. Similarly, in the biosciences, women account for 11 percent of the industrial personnel, but 18 percent of the Ph.D. supply as a whole. The details of work force availability by field are shown in Table 5.1. In compari- son to the pool of recent Ph.D.s (Table 4.6), the underrepresentation is even more marked. Growth of Ph.D. Personnel Total employment of doctoral scientists and engineers in industry grew by 14,100 over the 1977-1981 period or at an average annual rate of 5~3 percent. Women represented approximately 1,000 new job-holders or 7 percent of the net growth. _ Committee on the Education and Employment of Women in Science and Engineering, National Research Council, Women Scientists in Industry and Government: How Much Progress in the 1970s, National Academy of . . Sciences, 1980. 5.1
TABLE 5.1 Percent doctoral women employed in industry and percent available, 1981 Total Ph.D.s in No. women % Women Field % Women industry industry industry in Ph.D. labor force All fields Engineering, math & physical sciences Mathematics Computer sciences Physics Chemistry Earth sciences Engineering Life sciences Agricultural sciences Medical sciences Biological sciences Behavioral & social sciences Psychology Social sciences 75,629 3,496 5% 61,102 1,117 4,448 4,189 19,266 4,042 28,040 9,947 2,545 3,241 4,161 4,580 2,362 2,218 1,932 116 331 109 829 167 380 802 67 267 468 762 550 212 3 10 7 4 8 3 8 11 17 23 10 12 4 8 7 3 7 l 15 18 18 2 27 16 SOURCE: Survey of Doctorate Recipients, National Research Council 5.2
Job choices for recent women doctorates . . . The latest cohort of female doctorate recipients are planning industrial employment at roughly the same rates as their male counter- parts. (See Figure 2.3 on page 2.10) This is in contrast to the pattern five years earlier as shown in Table 5.2. For both sexes, an increasing proportion of the Ph.D. graduates are taking jobs in industry but this is more true for women so that the male-female difference has narrowed. TABLE 5.2 Percent of Ph.D. graduates planning industrial employment following receipt of doctorate by sex for selected fields ~ Q7 ~ PA ~ ~198O Ph.D.s Women Men Women Men Physics 11 14 25 21 Chemistry 20 30 33 41 Engineering 30 40 42 42 SOURCE: Doctorate Records File, National Research Council. Type of position held The available data do not indicate the job titles held by female and male scientists, or the levels of their positions. We do, however, have information on primary work activity and salary and these will be used as a measure of the comparative status of men and women doctorates in industry. Women scientists are only half as likely as men to hold managerial jobs--16 percent versus 29 percent (Figure 5.1 and Table 5.3~. This difference is undoubtedly explained in part by the fact that the women are generally younger. We also find that the relative number of managers among Ph.D. science and engineering personnel has decreased sharply since 1977. Aside from the lower proportion of women in management, for the most part male and female scientists are distributed similarly by work function (Figure 5.1~. Women scientists, however, continue to be relatively overrepresented in basic research and to report "other," not- defined work activities at a higher rate than men. 5 ,.3
TABLE 5.3 Percent of doctoral scientists and engineers in industry whose primary work activity is management, 1973, 1971, and 1981 Women Men % Managers 1973 1977 1981 20.0 18~1 16.4 40.3 37.2 28.7 SOURCE: Survey of Doctorate Recipients, National Research Council FIGURE 5 . 1 Primary work activities of doctoral s cientists and engineers in industry, 1981 WOMEN MEN - / Other /\ Activities / \ 16% Consulting \ 10% Writing 2% Ma nagement of non R&D \ Development / 3% \~5% 1 - - \ , / Ma nagem~ of R&D / \ 13% / \ / Basic \ / Research 1 2% Appl fed Research 29% - Consulting 7% Writing 1% Other / \ Activities >a \9% r _~ \ / / / Ma nagement \ of non R&D 5% Devel opment / 19% / \ Appl fed Resea rch 28% - SOURCE: Survey of Doctorate Recipients, National Research Council 5.4 Ma nags of R&D \ 23% Research I ~ / -
Salaries Median salaries paid to women industrial scientists and engineers are lower than those for men even among the most recent Ph.D.s (Figure 5.2~. The sex differential in pay increases with years since doctorate, amounting to $8,000 for those 25 or more years past the doctorate. For the 1979-1980 Ph.D.s, the median female salary was $29,600 or $2,400 less than that for men. The larger discrepancies for the older doctorates undoubtedly reflect, again, a long past history of discriminatory practice which is in some sense self-perpetuating because these women have not had access to the same opportunities for professional growth. However, it is of concern to find a large pay differential even for the most recent Ph.D.s. We do not know to what extent this may be due to different field distributions for women and men. 5~5
FIGURE 5 .2 Median salaries of doctoral scientists and engineers in industry by cohort and sex, 1981 1938- 1957 1958- 1969 1970- 1972 1973- 1974 1975- 1976 1977- 1978 1979- 1980 1 1 Women Men 1. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 $ IN THOUSANDS 5.6
