Why It’s Important to Broaden Diversity in STEM by Alice Jacobson Daunting obstacles have always faced girls and women in the science and technology fields. Research shows that girl students actually perform better than boys in math and are on par in science. Yet as female students approach college age, they tend to take fewer advanced courses in math and science, and major in Science & Engineering (S&E) fields at lower rates than do males. It’s a stubborn problem that even a decades-long movement urging girls to pursue STEM fields has not been very successful in overcoming. Underrepresented minorities and persons with disabilities also face challenges in pursuing S&E studies and occupations. A 2019 study by the National Center for Science and Engineering Studies (NCSES) dug deep into each group’s S&E education and employment issues. The report that emanated from that study, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering, shows that despite modest gains for those three groups, much more must be done to increase diversity in S&E education and jobs. Overcoming the S&E gap for women, minorities, and persons with disabilities is a crucial aim for several reasons. Not least of those is that pursuing an S&E career consistently produces clear paths to professional success. People with at least a bachelor’s degree in an S&E field, for example, experience unemployment at a lower rate than their peers in non-S&E occupations, and their median salaries are higher. More broadly, bridging the gap would help the U.S. regain its competitive edge globally. And broadening diversity in S&E occupations would help overcome the incredible challenges that face our species and all others: the sustainability of life on our planet. More on that later. First, a look at the specific challenges of the three groups that the NCSES studied. Persons with disabilities are succeeding admirably in S&E in some ways: e.g., they were enrolled in S&E university programs at the same rate as people without disabilities. However, disabled university students enrolled in S&E were less likely to receive financial aid than others. Plus, they were less likely to be enrolled full time for a whole year in college. And they were employed at rates approaching (but still lower than) their peers who were not disabled. Underrepresented minorities – that is, Black people, African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians and Alaska Natives – are educated and employed in S&E at rates lower than their share of the U.S. population. They earn fewer S&E academic groups proportionally than other ethnic groups, and despite their rising share of academic doctoral positions, the rates of underrepresented minorities employed in these jobs are still proportionally low. The NCSES report reserved its deepest dive for women in S&E. In many ways, especially considering the aforementioned movement to encourage girls to pursue S&E, the findings are disappointing. Women comprise 51.5% of the U.S. population, but earned only 41% of the S&E research doctorates awarded in 2017. And women held 10.1 million fulltime S&E jobs, compared to 12.8 million men. Twice as many women were employed part time in S&E. 1
Further, female scientists and engineers were more likely than their male peers to work outside of S&E fields (including healthcare, which is considered S&E-related). The NCSES numbers were even more dismaying in engineering and computer science. While women are earning more engineering degrees than in years past, those rates are still low. Women’s shares of both bachelor’s and master’s engineering degrees was 18% two decades ago; in 2016, they were 21% and 25% respectively. Computer science used to be a hospitable field for women, but women’s share of academic degrees earned has actually fallen off there: from 27% in 1997 to 19% in 2016. In the physical sciences, women fared somewhat better. In 2016, their share of all academic degrees ranged from 31% for doctorates to 36% for master’s degrees and 39% of bachelor’s degrees. The picture was rosiest in chemistry, which awarded 45% of bachelor’s degrees and 38% of doctorates to women. At the other end of the physical sciences spectrum is physics, where the number of women is very low at all degree levels. Women in all professions earn less than their male peers, and S&E salaries are no exception. The NCSES reported that men outearned women in almost all S&E occupations. Women’s median annual salary across S&E occupations was $66,000, compared to $90,000 for men. One bright spot cropped up in the biological, life sciences and social sciences occupations. There, women’s median salaries were on par with men. When we widen the S&E lens to include healthcare, the picture looks somewhat better, meaning more diverse. For example, the share of doctorates earned by women (25%), underrepresented minorities (9%), and persons with disabilities (also 9%) has risen for each group. Still, of these groups, only people with disabilities received PhDs in proportion to their share of the population. The relative success of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in pursuing S&E fields is more important to study than ever. That’s because the issues facing the U.S. and world at large are growing more relentless over time. As of this writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed 238,000 people in the U.S. and 1,260,000 people worldwide. With winter approaching, those numbers are expected to spin even further out of control. Things are little better on the climate front. Our planet has warmed an average of 1°C. “Oncein-a-century” weather disasters like devastating floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and the melting of Arctic sea ice are happening many times a year and lasting longer. With a 2°C average rise, some climate scientists warn, Earth may arrive at a tipping point: farmers might not be able to produce enough food for people, and ultimately all species could experience extinction. History and research show that challenges are easier to resolve when large and diverse groups of people work together to confront them. In contrast to the dire environmental and epidemiological issues that face us, redoubling schools’ efforts to encourage bright females, underrepresented minorities, and students with disabilities to enter S&E fields – and giving them the resources they need to succeed – does not seem nearly so difficult. Let’s persist. 2