Men heavily outnumber women in several academic disciplines, including physics, engineering and computer science. And while gender gaps in those majors have shrunk at certain selective institutions, they have widened dramatically at many others, according to recent research published in Science.
The ratio of men to women in physics, engineering and computer science has surged at institutions where students have relatively low math SAT scores, according to an analysis from New York University researchers.
At these institutions, where students have math SAT scores around 450, more men are pursuing those degrees at the same time that women are choosing other subjects. In 2002, these disciplines had 3.5 men for every woman. In 2022, they had seven men for each woman.
For colleges hoping to get students into high-paying careers, the data may be troubling.
“There was essentially a doubling of the gap among the lowest-achieving institutions,” said Joseph Cimpian, economic and education policy professor at New York University and coauthor of the paper.
Researchers examined about 34 million bachelor’s degrees awarded in these specific STEM majors across 20 years. They found the same pattern didn’t hold at selective colleges.
Institutions whose incoming students have particularly high math SAT scores, an average of 770, have made strides in achieving gender parity in physics, engineering and computer science. In 2002, the ratio of men to women was 2.2-to-1. Two decades later, it declined to 1.5-to-1.
What’s causing the divide?
The dynamic is somewhat unique to physics, engineering and computer science, Cimpian said. In other STEM disciplines, including subjects like biology, chemistry and mathematics, gender gaps are fairly constant across different types of institutions, he said.
Researchers already knew that high school academic achievement affects the major choices of women and men differently. In a 2020 study, they found that 10% of men on the lowest end of the achievement spectrum, at and below the 1st percentile, would go into physics, engineering and computer science. To find a cohort of women with a similar proportion pursuing those disciplines, researchers had to look to women in the 80th percentile of academic achievement.
“Very low-achieving men are going into these majors,” Cimpian said. “But women will not go into these majors unless they are very high-achieving.”
It can be difficult to pinpoint why exactly these gaps are widening at lower selectivity colleges, but Cimpian said he believes it is something at the institutional level, such as culture or proportion of female faculty, rather than changing preferences of students. In the same 2020 study, he and his co-authors looked specifically at students who said they intended to major in physics, engineering and computer science.
High-achieving men and women persisted in those fields at similar rates. But among students with lower academic achievement, women were less likely to persist in those majors than men.
“This is pretty strong evidence that there’s something happening in those lower-achieving, less selective institutions during college that goes above and beyond whether or not the women had initial interest or different attitudes toward these majors,” Cimpian said.
The resulting gaps have poor implications for women’s equity, said Sara Estep, an economist with the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Some of the fastest growing occupations in the U.S., such as data scientists and information security analysts, require a degree in one of these disciplines.
“These are all high-paying careers and we’ve historically had a pretty hard time getting women’s representation in those fields,” she said.
Workers with degrees in physics, engineering and computer science earn more than their peers who majored in other disciplines, regardless of the selectivity of their institutions, the NYU researchers wrote in a report for The Brookings Institution.
Other fast-growing occupations, such as wind turbine technician, require some technical knowledge in these fields, but likely not a full bachelor’s degree, Estep said, meaning they may be accessible to those who did not attend selective institutions.
Occupational segregation by gender, Estep said, is not only bad for women, it’s bad for the economy overall. When women earn more, they can contribute to economic growth. Greater diversity in a workforce often increases productivity.
“The lack of diversity is a bad thing for employers,” she said. “That’s something that isn’t maybe discussed as much.”
Changing policy
Although closing the gaps is challenging, Cimpian said he believes existing programs can help.
For example, a National Science Foundation grant program has given $240 million to institutions to improve gender diversity among STEM faculty, according to the new research paper. But half of that money has been given to institutions in the top 20% of math achievement, the researchers found. Changing that distribution could encourage progress at less selective institutions.
However, The Washington Post reported last month that NSF officials were reviewing active grants to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive orders attempting to end federal support for diversity and equity initiatives.
Partnerships between colleges and with the private sector could also target institutions with lower average math scores. Nonprofit organizations aimed at gender diversity in these fields could spend more resources at less selective colleges.
Finally, increased funding for community colleges could help send more women into these fields, Estep said. Although the Trump administration is looking to cut off federal money for diversity and equity initiatives, state and local governments could still boost funding for community colleges, where women make up the majority of enrollment.
Although women may be choosing to move away from physics, engineering and computer science, Estep said, those decisions aren’t made in a vacuum.
“Our choices are often a product of policy decisions that have been made above our heads,” she said.
