We marked yet another International Women’s Day on March 8. The IWD 2022 campaign theme was #BreakTheBias. One of the most importance aspects of breaking this bias is a discussion around the serious gender gap in STEM fields.
Granted that that rising female participation in higher education and overall labor force has been one of the most remarkable achievements of the past century. However, the picture remains bleak when it comes to STEM. According to the United Nations, a miniscule 5 percent of all mathematics and statistics students globally are women, and women made up of merely 8 percent of the global total in manufacturing, construction and engineering courses.
Even in the United States, women make up of about 47 per cent of the total workforce, but only 28 per cent of the STEM workforce. Engineering and computer science — two of the most lucrative STEM fields in terms of pay and availability of jobs — remain heavily male dominated. And with men greatly outnumbering women majoring in most STEM subjects in universities – only 21 percent of engineering majors and 19 percent of computer science majors are women — the gender gap remains particularly skewed in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid fields, warns the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Only 10.9 percent of all construction-related jobs are held by women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The OECD average is no better — women accounted for less than 20 percent of entrants into tertiary level computer science programmes in OECD countries and only around 18 percent of engineering entrants.
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Facts and stats
A 2021 Pew research conducted in the United States again, throws up some interesting facts:
- Women now earn a majority of all undergraduate and advanced degrees, but their share is less in STEM fields.
- In STEM, women make up a large majority of all workers in health-related jobs, but are highly underrepresented in fields like engineering and computer science.
- Black and Hispanic workers remain underrepresented in the STEM workforce (9 percent and 8 percent, respectively) compared with their share of all workers (11 percent and 17 percent, respectively).
If the academic scene is not skewed enough, let’s look at what’s happening in the corporate world:
- Women made up only 3 percent of STEM industry CEOs in 2019, according to a Credit Suisse survey.
- The starting salaries of women engineering graduates is at least USD 4,000 less than men, says the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), one of the most-cited multidisciplinary scientific journals in the world.
- On an annual average, women earned USD 15,000 less than men, while facing greater gender discrimination (50 percent) in STEM workplaces as compared with women in all occupations (41 percent), according to Pew Research.
Break the bias
Women have traditionally been discouraged from opting for STEM career even though on a global average, girls regularly outperformed boys in science test scores. And even when they do opt for the sciences, it is usually the life and health sciences.
Despite this, some of the most notable modern STEM achievements have come from women. For example, the greatest discovery in our times – the Internet — wouldn’t have been possible without the active participation of some women engineers, as journalist Claire L. Evans outlined in her book, Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. Or take the NASA women mathematicians behind the Apollo mission, even though the public face of the US Space program was a man. A story now made famous by the Book, The Women of Apollo, and the movie, Hidden Figures.
Breaking the bias of centuries doesn’t happen with a hashtag. That’s just a beginning of a dialogue. The bias has to be broken by challenging the prevailing mindset and systemic fault lines. Involving and encouraging women to choose STEM careers is an important step in breaking the bias.
As the AAUW points out, STEM careers will help narrow the gender pay gap, enhance women’s economic security, ensure a diverse and talented STEM workforce and prevent biases in these fields and the products and services they produce. Involving more women in STEM will also encourage innovation in science and tech, since currently the fields are deprived of an equal share of the global women workforce.
It is also important from a greater, global perspective. While recognizing that advancing gender equality in the context of the climate crisis and disaster risk reduction is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century, the United Nations notes women can be more effective and powerful change-makers in their communities for climate adaptation and mitigation.
For this to happen, bringing more women into the STEM fold will be crucial.
It will be a win-win for all.
