Societys Backbone Blog

A couple of recently published studies about women in science, engineering and technology are making the rounds in the blogosphere and are creating an interesting dialog about why is it that women’s participation in these fields is much lower than that of men.

The most recent one was published last month by The Center for Work-Life Policy (CWLP) and is titled The Athena Factor: Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology.

If you have been somewhat informed about women in the labor force, you might know that getting women to increase their participation in math and engineering fields has been a social concern in the U.S. for several decades now.

One of the study’s key findings is that “41% of highly qualified scientists, engineers and technologists on the lower rungs of corporate career ladders are female — a talent pipeline that is surprisingly deep and rich. Despite the challenges girls face at school and in our culture, a significant number make the commitment to begin careers in science.”

So, after all, it is not that women do not choose these fields as career paths. It seems to be that women do choose not to stay in these fields for what the study calls “5 antigens.” A couple of articles that describe what these antigens are:

Harvard Business Review – Stopping the Exodus of Women in Science

Computerworld – Why women quit technology careers

The second study was published late last year and is titled Why are there so few women in information technology? Assessing the role of personality in career choices, co-authored by economy professor Joshua Rosenbloom. This research focuses on “personal preference” as a determinant of “whether a qualified woman would go into the information technology field.” Rosenbloom also had a 2006 paper on this subject.

The Boston Globe has an article that tries to describe the findings of Rosenbloom’s research, The Freedom to Say “no”, but I think one must read the actual research to really get the points of the findings.

The Human Resource Executives has a summary on both studies at Analyzing Female Brain Drain.

I’m still absorbing the content of these studies, but accepting the generalizations arrived at by these two researches makes me feel like if we have been swimming against the current and I’m not quite sure that it is the case. Have we really been looking at the participation, or lack of, by women in these fields the wrong way? Is it truly that women do prefer “people” roles over “scientific” and eventually give into these preferences because it is easier than to figure out how to stay in the field?

Regardless, the one thing these studies and virtually all of the ones I have read on this subject agree on is that the gender gap in scientific fields has nothing to do with women’s skills and ability to successfully perform in these fields. It has to do with social and environmental issues. I’m waiting to see who really dares to bring genes into this picture.