Women's underrepresentation in science: Sociocultural and biological considerations.

Abstract

The underrepresentation of women at the top of math-intensive fields is controversial, with competing claims of biological and sociocultural causation. The authors develop a framework to delineate possible causal pathways and evaluate evidence for each. Biological evidence is contradictory and inconclusive. Although cross-cultural and cross-cohort differences suggest a powerful effect of sociocultural context, evidence for specific factors is inconsistent and contradictory. Factors unique to underrepresentation in math-intensive fields include the following: (a) Math-proficient women disproportionately prefer careers in non-math-intensive fields and are more likely to leave math-intensive careers as they advance; (b) more men than women score in the extreme math-proficient range on gatekeeper tests, such as the SAT Mathematics and the Graduate Record Examinations Quantitative Reasoning sections; (c) women with high math competence are disproportionately more likely to have high verbal competence, allowing greater choice of professions; and (d) in some math-intensive fields, women with children are penalized in promotion rates. The evidence indicates that women's preferences, potentially representing both free and constrained choices, constitute the most powerful explanatory factor; a secondary factor is performance on gatekeeper tests, most likely resulting from sociocultural rather than biological causes.Keywords: sex differences, spatial ability, mathematics, family versus career trade-offs, women in science Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014412.supp By 2001, women were earning 48% of bachelor's degrees (National Science Foundation, 2007) and 29% of PhD degrees (Hill & Johnson, 2004) in mathematics, representing enormous increases over the prior 30 years. Women's representation among editorial boards in science and awards panels similarly increased (Nelson & Brammer, 2008). These changes are evidence of the strength of cultural factors in determining such outcomes, because biology has not changed over this period. Despite this progress, women's representation among PhD degree holders has not coincided with proportional faculty appointments: Women earned 31.3% of chemistry PhD degrees between 1993 and 2003 but in 2002 were hired for only 21.5% of assistant professorships. Similar disparities exist for new faculty appointments in physics, engineering, and mathematics. In 1976 women represented only 7.5% of the faculty in physical sciences and less than 1% in engineering (Dearman & Plisko, 1979). By 2006 the percentage had increased to 16%-25%, but the hiring of assistant professors in these fields has not been proportional to female PhD pools. This hiring disparity extends beyond math-intensive fields.Even in less math-intensive fields, such as cellular and molecular biology, fields in which women obtain 46% of all PhD degrees, women disproportionately drop out at multiple points. The picture is the same across many science fields: Women are not being hired as assistant professors at the ra...

Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection

“…In a related argument, Ceci et al (2009) claim that there are genuine gender differences in occupationa l preferenc es that reflect some mixture of ''free'' and ''constrai ned'' choices. The latter are best understo od as accommodati ons to beliefs, whether accurate or inaccurate, that some careers are more compatible than others with the biologica l exigencies of motherhood.…”

“…The former reflect stable and deep-rooted differences between men and women in their preferences for particular types of tasks, but especially for caring, nurturing, and interactin g with people as opposed to objects. Ceci et al (2009) provide no new evidence in support of this essentiali st claim, but their interpretive review identifies ''pronounced sex differences in occupationa l preferenc es that occur along a 'people-to-obje ct' dimension (Lippa, 1998 ): Women are more likely to pursue people-oriented or organic fields, whereas men with similar mathematics and science ability tend to pursue object-orien ted fields (Webb et al, 2007 ;see Lippa, 2005 , for a review).'' The research reported in these citations 4 Not all STEM majors wind up in STEM occupations (see, e.g., Sassler et al, n.d.); and, conversely, some pathways into the science pipeline emerge late in educational careers (Xie and Shauman, 2003 ).…”

“…Morgan et al / Social Science Research xxx (2013) xxx-xxx 3 is based entirely on convenience samples that, in our view, offer less than persuasive evidence. 7 Neverthel ess, Ceci et al (2009;see also Williams and Ceci, 2012 ) exemplify the commo n argument that gender differen ces in occupat ional preferen ces reflect men and women's stable and deeply ingrained preferences for caring or nurturi ng, that, when coupled with beliefs about the incompati bility of science with caring or nurturin g, make women less likely to choose STEM occupation s. Eccles' (1994; see also Eccles', 2011a,b ) expectancy-value model is one of the most influential and comprehensive developmental models of achievemen t-related choices, and continue s to inform research today. In this model, the educational and occupationa l choices of young women and men are conditioned by feedback received from ''socializers .''…”

“…If arguments about exogenously determined gender differenc es in occupational preferences (e.g., Hakim, 2002 ), ''free and constrained '' choices (Ceci et al, 2009 ), or subjective task valuations (Eccles, 2011a,b ) are correct, it should be the case that any association between occupationa l plans and college major selection will disappear, or at least be greatly diminished, in models that include measures of work-family orientati on. Thus, although our primary interest is in the consequences of occupationa l plans rather than their sources, our analyses speak to the theoretical claim that gender differences in occupationa l preferences emerge, at least in part, from gender differences in work-family preferences .…”

“…To foreshadow our results, we show that neither factor accounts for much of the gender difference in initial college major selection. Although these findings are consistent with some extant empirical research on older cohorts of students (e.g., Xie and Shauman, 2003 ) and on college-t o-career transitions (e.g., Sassler et al, n.d.), they fly in the face of much academic theorizing about why women are underrepres ented in STEM careers (see, e.g., Ceci et al, 2009;Williams and Ceci, 2012 ; see also Eccles, 2011a,b ), not to mention lay and journalistic accounts of women's underrepr esentation in STEM.…”