IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15853.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Do Women Leave Science and Engineering?

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Hunt

Abstract

I use the 1993 and 2003 National Surveys of College Graduates to examine the higher exit rate of women compared to men from science and engineering relative to other fields. I find that the higher relative exit rate is driven by engineering rather than science, and show that 60% of the gap can be explained by the relatively greater exit rate from engineering of women dissatisfied with pay and promotion opportunities. Contrary to the existing literature, I find that family-related constraints and dissatisfaction with working conditions are only secondary factors. My results differ due to my use of non-science and engineering fields as a comparison group. The relative exit rate by gender from engineering does not differ from that of other fields once women's relatively high exit rates from male fields generally is taken into account.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Hunt, 2010. "Why Do Women Leave Science and Engineering?," NBER Working Papers 15853, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15853
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15853.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Hunt, 2016. "Why do Women Leave Science and Engineering?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(1), pages 199-226, January.
    2. Jennifer Hunt & Marjolaine Gauthier-Loiselle, 2010. "How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 31-56, April.
    3. Preston, Anne E, 1994. "Why Have All the Women Gone? A Study of Exit of Women from the Science and Engineering Professions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1446-1462, December.
    4. Todd R. Stinebrickner & Ralph Stinebrickner, 2011. "Math or Science? Using Longitudinal Expectations Data to Examine the Process of Choosing a College Major," NBER Working Papers 16869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jennifer Hunt, 2011. "Which Immigrants Are Most Innovative and Entrepreneurial? Distinctions by Entry Visa," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(3), pages 417-457.
    6. Hunt, Jennifer & Garant, Jean-Philippe & Herman, Hannah & Munroe, David, 2012. "Why Don't Women Patent?," CEPR Discussion Papers 9185, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Paula Stephan & Sharon Levin, 2005. "Leaving Careers in IT: Gender Differences in Retention," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 383-396, October.
    8. Nicole M. Fortin, 2008. "The Gender Wage Gap among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    9. Robst, John, 2007. "Education and job match: The relatedness of college major and work," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 397-407, August.
    10. Basit Zafar, 2013. "College Major Choice and the Gender Gap," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(3), pages 545-595.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hunt, Jennifer & Garant, Jean-Philippe & Herman, Hannah & Munroe, David J., 2012. "Why Don't Women Patent?," IZA Discussion Papers 6886, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2015. "Does Immigration Affect Whether US Natives Major in Science and Engineering?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 79-108.
    3. Shulamit Kahn & Donna Ginther, 2017. "Women and STEM," NBER Working Papers 23525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Grace Lordan & Jörn‐Steffen Pischke, 2022. "Does Rosie Like Riveting? Male and Female Occupational Choices," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 110-130, January.
    5. Yannu Zheng & Olof Ejermo, 2015. "How do the foreign-born perform in inventive activity? Evidence from Sweden," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 659-695, July.
    6. Lisa D. Cook & Chaleampong Kongcharoen, 2010. "The Idea Gap in Pink and Black," NBER Working Papers 16331, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Koffi, Marlene, 2021. "Innovative ideas and gender inequality," CLEF Working Paper Series 35, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    8. Crown, Daniel & Faggian, Alessandra & Corcoran, Jonathan, 2020. "Foreign-Born graduates and innovation: Evidence from an Australian skilled visa program✰,✰✰,★,★★," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(9).
    9. Malgorzata Wachowska & Magdalena Homa, 2020. "The Role of Ethnic Diversity in Stimulating Innovation Processes: Comparative Analysis of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 1157-1176.
    10. Sharma, Rishi & Sparber, Chad, 2020. "Buying Lottery Tickets for Foreign Workers: Search Cost Externalities Induced by H-1B Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 13892, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Gordon H. Hanson, 2021. "Immigration and Regional Specialization in AI," NBER Working Papers 28671, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Mike Thelwall, 2020. "Mid-career field switches reduce gender disparities in academic publishing," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(3), pages 1365-1383, June.
    13. Delaney, Judith M. & Devereux, Paul J., 2019. "Understanding gender differences in STEM: Evidence from college applications✰," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 219-238.
    14. Chengguang Li & Rodrigo Isidor & Luis Alfonso Dau & Rudy Kabst, 2018. "The More the Merrier? Immigrant Share and Entrepreneurial Activities," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 42(5), pages 698-733, September.
    15. William R. Kerr, 2010. "Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation," NBER Chapters, in: Cities and Entrepreneurship, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Patrick Gaule & Mario Piacentini, 2015. "Immigration and Innovation: Chinese Graduate Students in U.S. Universities," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp529, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    17. Matthias Parey & Jens Ruhose & Fabian Waldinger & Nicolai Netz, 2017. "The Selection of High-Skilled Emigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(5), pages 776-792, December.
    18. Hugh Cassidy & Amanda Gaulke, 2024. "The increasing penalty to occupation‐education mismatch," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 607-632, April.
    19. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William Kerr & Çağlar Özden & Christopher Parsons, 2016. "Global Talent Flows," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 83-106, Fall.
    20. Asadul Islam & Faridul Islam & Chau Nguyen, 2017. "Skilled Immigration, Innovation, and the Wages of Native-Born Americans," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 459-488, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15853. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.