FACT BRIEF

Are there still gender disparities in STEM education?

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

By EconoFact

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YES

While women earn close to half of all bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), there is wide variation in women’s representation across fields. In 2017, 49% of all bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering were awarded to women. This number masks substantial gender disparities across fields, however. Women earned two-thirds of bachelor’s degrees in life sciences, psychology, and social science fields — 62% in biology, 78% in psychology, and 61% in social science. In contrast, women represented only slightly more than one quarter of degree recipients in the combined math-intensive fields of geoscience (39%), engineering (22%), economics (32%), mathematics (42%), computer science (19%), and the physical sciences (40%).

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Sources

National Science Foundation Higher Education in Science and Engineering

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