Women: Their Underrepresentation and Career Differentials in Science and Engineering Proceedings of a Conference (1987) / Chapter Skim
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WOMEN GRADUATE STUDENTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS
WOMEN GRADUATE STUDENTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS
Pages 103-126
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From page 103... ...
for field differences and thus tend to generalize their findings beyond the level sustainable by the underlying data. In particular, very significant differences exist in such institutional structures as financial aid mechanisms for different disciplines, and these account for different patterns and timing of graduate study in, say, physics, engineering, life sciences, and psychology.
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From page 104... ...
Traditional interpretations of women's participation in S/E suggested, well into the l970s, that the length and rigor of graduate study in these fields were poorly suited to women's life course (even though more traditionally feminine fields characteristically require much longer graduate study) and that women's aspirations were more cultural than professional, in contrast, the underlying assumption of the present discussion is only that women, like men, undertake graduate S/E study (and probably all graduate and professional study)
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From page 105... ...
Data from these surveys continue to show some progressive underrepresentation of women among S/E graduates in most fields at progressively higher degree levels in the mid-l980s, although the disparities relative to men have greatly diminished since l970. Thus, women's share of baccalaureate S/E degrees -- the necessary precursors of graduate study -- rose from 26 percent in l970 to almost 38 percent in l983, representing a 68 percent growth rate for women compared to a 2 percent decline for men during this period.
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From page 106... ...
Since about l970, the single most striking change in women's undergraduate major fields is a massive shift out of education and into business; in the remaining fields, a gradual redistribution appears to be in progress with the more traditional areas like humanities and social sciences losing students to the natural sciences and engineering. These trends are shown in Figure 2.
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From page 107... ...
Male Female Bios Bus Educ Engi Lit Math Phys Soc Field 1 Male Female Bios Bus Educ Engi Lit Math Phys Soc Field Figure 2 Bachelor's degrees in selected fields, by sex, l972 and l982.
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From page 108... ...
By l966 the attrition rate for the women science students in this group was twice that for men (54 percent versus 26 percent)
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From page 109... ...
shows that 22 percent of the l977 women baccalaureates in physical sciences earned master's degrees in l979 and that ll percent of the original group earned doctorates in l984; for men the corresponding figures were 30 percent and l6 percent. Alternatively, women obtained 20 percent of physical sciences bachelor's degrees in l977, l8 percent of master's in l979, and l5 percent of Ph.D.s in l984.
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From page 110... ...
The tacit assumption of most studies on women in graduate programs is that the observed sex differences must be related either to ability or to motivational factors; access issues are not even mentioned by most authors, with rather few exceptions (CEEWISE, l983:l.l3; Hornig, l984:34; National Commission on Student Financial Assistance l985:32, 80; and Russell Sage Task Force)
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From page 111... ...
However, the large, rapid recent increases in women's level of mathematical preparation and in the number of women pursuing quantitativelybased fields suggest the absence of decisive genetic differences. Although facility in mathematics is undoubtedly necessary for most science fields, the direct relationship between mathematical ability and ability in various science and engineering fields remains largely unexplored.
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From page 112... ...
. Notable exceptions occur in two fields, computer sciences and health sciences, which have been shown to have especially unfavorable graduate financial support patterns for women but not for men (National Commission for Student Financial Assistance, l985:32, 80; Russell Sage Task Force; Syverson, l982:l6-l7)
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From page 113... ...
Some of the female underrepresentation in S/E graduate programs, therefore, is probably the result of skewed undergraduate enrollments. Short of actual exclusion or quotas, the major factor that affects access to graduate study is financial aid.
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From page 114... ...
The National Research Council's annual Survey of Doctorate Recipients regularly collects data by sex and field on all sources of financial aid reported by students, but not on dollar amounts. The annual tabulations show a number of sex differences that correspond in general to Feldman's observation.
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From page 115... ...
Field, sex, and race differences in graduate support patterns have again been reviewed in the most recent Summary Report on new doctorates (Coyle, l986:24-28) , yielding findings that strongly suggest sex- and race-differentiated practices in the awarding of graduate financial aid.
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From page 116... ...
The direction of causality of this phenomenon needs further investigation. Future studies of sex differences in financial aid should attempt to distinguish between support offered to entering graduate students and continuing support for later stages of study, in an effort to shed light on attrition and persistence issues.
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From page 117... ...
In another chapter on dedication to graduate study, Feldman examined a variety of conditions that surely concern motivation, although he seemed not to view them in that light. He found that about onethird of male faculty and fellow students in science fields believed women students to be less dedicated than men (l974:l04)
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From page 118... ...
, and the manifest differences in the graduate experience. As mentioned earlier, marriage and parenthood, whether existing or anticipated, are widely believed to exercise unfavorable influences on women's graduate study and subsequent careers, usually through making greater demands on women's time than on men's or through constraining women to particular locations.
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From page 119... ...
The consistent failure of researchers to explore sex differences in financial aid patterns once their existence had been demonstrated is hard to explain. Such differences are among the potentially most compelling in explaining female attrition from graduate programs at all levels, yet few investigators have pursued the existing leads.
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From page 120... ...
l983. Climbing the Ladder: An Update on the Status of Doctoral Women Scientists and Engineers.
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From page 121... ...
Paper prepared for the National Commission on Student Financial Assistance. ERIC document no.
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From page 122... ...
National Commission on Student Financial Assistance.
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From page 123... ...
First, there are persisting differences between men and women scientists, on average, in role performance and career attainments when viewed crosssectionally. These differences are almost always in the direction of comparative disadvantage for women and are usually combined with considerable intra-gender differences.
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From page 124... ...
Such bivariate distributions mislead as much as they inform, since they mask marked differences between men and women scientists in professional age, education, and scientific field, these being independently related to salary, unemployment, and rank. These differing distributions of men and women must be taken into account in gauging the extent of gender difference in career attainments.
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From page 125... ...
They comprise just 7 percent of all doctorates in the physical sciences and 2 percent in engineering in contrast to l7 percent of doctorates in the life sciences and 22 percent in the social sciences, these composite fields having once been described as the "dispassionate" and the "compassionate" sciences.4 (It is not clear whether gender differences also exist in specialty choice.) There are I have not located any data on large distributions of men and women scientists and engineers currently at work, I rely on inferences of this sort.
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From page 126... ...
• Non-S/E 1985 SOURCE: Survey of Earned Doctorates, National Research Council. Figure l Shares of doctorates earned by women.
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