Women in Science - Statistics About Women in Science

Statistics About Women in Science

Statistics are used to indicate disadvantages faced by women in science, and also to track positive changes of employment opportunities and incomes for women in science.

Women appear to do less well than men (in terms of degree, rank, and salary) in the fields that have been traditionally dominated by women, such as nursing. In 1991 women attributed 91% of the PhDs in nursing, and men held 4% of full professorships in nursing. Women have never earned 4% of full professorship in any field dominated by men. Women earned 9% of the PhDs in engineering but are only 1% of the full professors. In the field of psychology, where women earn the majority of PhDs, women do not fill the majority of high rank positions in that field.

Women's lower status and salaries in the scientific community are also reflected in statistics. According to the data provided in 1993, the median salaries of female scientists and engineers with doctoral degrees were 20% less than men. This data can be explained as there was less participation of women in high rank scientific fields/positions and a female majority in low-paid fields/positions. However, even with men and women in the same scientific community field, women are typically paid 15-17% less than men. In addition to the gender gap, there is also salary differences between ethnicity: African-American women with more years of experiences earn 3.4% less than European-American women with similar skills.

Women are also poorly represented in the sciences as compared to their numbers in the overall working population. Within 11% of African-American women in the workforce, only 3% are employed as scientists and engineers. Hispanics made up 8% of the total workers in the USA, and yet only 3% of that number are scientists and engineers. Native Americans participation cannot be statistically measured.

Women tend to earn less than men in all industries, including government and academia. Women are likely to be hired in highest-paid positions. The data showing the differences in salaries, ranks, and overall success between the genders is often claimed to be a result of women's lack of professional experience. But, according to the National Science Foundation research, after examining other factors such as age, experience, and education as the causes of why there is a gap in success between men and women, they concluded that discrimination is the only explanation for the poor positions and salaries of women and minorities. The rate of women's professional achievement is increasing. In 1996, the salaries for women in professional fields increased from 85% to 95% relative to men with similar skills and jobs. Young women between the age of 27 and 33 earned 98%, nearly as much as their male peers. In the total workforce of the United States, women earn 74% as much as their male counterparts (in the 1970s they only made 59% as much as their male counterparts).

Research on women's participation in the "hard" sciences such as physics and computer science speaks of the "leaky pipeline" model, in which the proportion of women "on track" to potentially becoming top scientists fall off at every step of the way, from getting interested in science and maths in elementary school, through doctorate, postdoc, and career steps. Various reasons are proposed for this, and although the existence of this trend in many countries and times suggests that there is a genetic or hormonal causal component, the vast differences in the "leakiness" of this pipe across the same countries and times argues also for a causal component that is cultural. The leaky pipeline is also applicable in other fields. In biology, for instance, women in the United States have been getting Masters degrees in the same numbers as men for two decades, yet fewer women get PhDs; and the numbers of women P.I.s have not risen.

In the UK, women occupied over half the places in science-related higher education courses (science, medicine, maths, computer science and engineering) in 2004/5. However, gender differences by individual subject were large: women substantially outnumbered men in biology and medicine, especially nursing, while men predominated in maths, physical sciences, computer science and engineering.

In the U.S., women with science or engineering doctoral degrees were predominantly employed in the education sector in 2001, with substantially fewer employed in business or industry than men. According to salary figures reported in 1991, women earn anywhere between 83.6 percent to 87.5 percent that of a man's salary. An even greater disparity between men and women is the ongoing trend that women scientists with more experience are never as well-compensated as their male counterparts. The salary of a male engineer continues to experience growth as he gains experience whereas the female engineer sees her salary reach a plateau.